Spaced out! Are we it?
Saturday, 7. June 2008, 09:01:24
This is the answer I sent to a friend of mine who had mentioned his love of studying cosmolgy in an Email. I thought I'd pass it on.....
OK. So Theory M makes the math work, but does that really prove anything?
Newton's math worked too, until they found that one of Jupiter's moons appeared from behind the planet 4 seconds too late. And then there was that troublesome stuff that Pierre and Marie Currie were working on. Hmmm ....
Actually, I hope it is wrong. That is because long distance space travel would be an exercise in futility. What would be the point of freezing yourself, whizzing off at just below the speed of light for a trip a mere 500 light years away, then doing the same in the return to Earth, only to find that the planet is 2 million years older than you are (twins paradox) and nobody has a clue who you are, your ship is a laughable relic from the dim dark past, and you end up in a circus side show as an example of "What we used to be before we mutated into a superior species!" Oops!
So, to use Star Trek terminology, we would have to find out how to "warp" both space and time! And maybe the other 7 dimensions too (if any!) Maybe the Vulcans will help us!
I think they're nuts to send these deep-space probes far far away. We have no idea what's out there! They announce that the probes are searching for microbes in puddles in some far off planet or moon. But what if the probe is found by the Borg, or some species that's so advanced they regard us as microbes? Can they guarantee us that it won't be, or that there an no Borg like folks, etc, out there? That to me is the ultimate stupidity created by a species who truly believes that IT is the only intelligent life form in the whole fucking universe! What a colossal vanity! And there's some question as to whether we really are intelligent! We don't normally act it. (Not speaking of individuals here.)
One day I made a few assumptions based on the fact that there are billions of stars per galaxy, and billions of galaxies. I assumed 4 billion stars/galaxy and 3 billion galaxies. Now, if we assume that the chance of any one planet circling any old sun has a 1 in a quadrillion chance of having intelligent life, there would be 12 million planets with intelligent life! If that's anywhere near accurate, what would be the probability that this species is the most advanced? One in 12 million! Dem's heavy odds! And even if there is a God who created everything, why wouldn't such a God want lots of folks right across the Universe to worship Him? Why just a bunch of losers like us? (speaking of our Glorious Leaders!)
OK. So Theory M makes the math work, but does that really prove anything?
Newton's math worked too, until they found that one of Jupiter's moons appeared from behind the planet 4 seconds too late. And then there was that troublesome stuff that Pierre and Marie Currie were working on. Hmmm ....
Actually, I hope it is wrong. That is because long distance space travel would be an exercise in futility. What would be the point of freezing yourself, whizzing off at just below the speed of light for a trip a mere 500 light years away, then doing the same in the return to Earth, only to find that the planet is 2 million years older than you are (twins paradox) and nobody has a clue who you are, your ship is a laughable relic from the dim dark past, and you end up in a circus side show as an example of "What we used to be before we mutated into a superior species!" Oops!
So, to use Star Trek terminology, we would have to find out how to "warp" both space and time! And maybe the other 7 dimensions too (if any!) Maybe the Vulcans will help us!
I think they're nuts to send these deep-space probes far far away. We have no idea what's out there! They announce that the probes are searching for microbes in puddles in some far off planet or moon. But what if the probe is found by the Borg, or some species that's so advanced they regard us as microbes? Can they guarantee us that it won't be, or that there an no Borg like folks, etc, out there? That to me is the ultimate stupidity created by a species who truly believes that IT is the only intelligent life form in the whole fucking universe! What a colossal vanity! And there's some question as to whether we really are intelligent! We don't normally act it. (Not speaking of individuals here.)
One day I made a few assumptions based on the fact that there are billions of stars per galaxy, and billions of galaxies. I assumed 4 billion stars/galaxy and 3 billion galaxies. Now, if we assume that the chance of any one planet circling any old sun has a 1 in a quadrillion chance of having intelligent life, there would be 12 million planets with intelligent life! If that's anywhere near accurate, what would be the probability that this species is the most advanced? One in 12 million! Dem's heavy odds! And even if there is a God who created everything, why wouldn't such a God want lots of folks right across the Universe to worship Him? Why just a bunch of losers like us? (speaking of our Glorious Leaders!)
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a) other civilisations would have any kind of need at all to be hostile to us (it is arrogant to assume that if they're advanced enough to get here they won't also have access to a million planets more interesting than than ours)
b) other civilisations could get here quickly and easily (I think it would have to follow hundreds or thousands of years of communication before they would contemplate it - even if they do have some kind of faster-than-light travel)
c) other civilisations would ever, ever, ever find a tiny insignificant pin-prick of a probe in the mind-bogglingly vast expanse of the universe
Against that, isn't it part of our nature to want to know more about the world we live in?
By MossMan, # 7. June 2008, 12:42:56
I would say there is one initiator of all the universes.
Are humans, in fact, intelligent as compared to other species, planetary or not? Depends upon what type of intelligence a species other than our own values.
Really, do other thinking species here on our own planet recognize us?
Personally, I believe we are not alone.
By momable, # 8. June 2008, 23:54:22
For all we know, there could be something like patterns forming in the charged dust particles of a star's nebula, and that the interaction of these patterns can lead to such a complex system that "intelligence" becomes a possibility. Who knows what other types of organised systems could become adaptive and self-preserving, given infinite time...
By MossMan, # 9. June 2008, 12:27:58
'Hairy blobs' in acid hell suggest new niche for life
By MossMan, # 9. June 2008, 12:32:17
It's a mistake to believe that ALL life must resemble us, or the other way around. And it seems to me that when you are dealing with a complete unknown, care is in order.
As I suggested to my friend, wouldn't we be better advised to solve the massive problems we have here on our own spinning rock, and then, as a more mature species, turn our attention to the stars? Or do we want to make the entire Galaxy a mess too?
Sometimes I think that if I were the Commander of a Starship from Far, Far Away, and came and orbited the earth for a while, eventually I'd give the order, "Load Phasars!"
By radostsguy, # 10. June 2008, 12:38:19
By MossMan, # 10. June 2008, 16:26:23
You don't. You either opine that it is, or hope to hell that it is!
That's my whole point. We just don't know! And think how vast the Universe is! We can't even begin to make any sort of what KGB calls "intelligence analysis" because we have ZERO information upon which to base it. And there's a good probabily, I would suggest, that our entire experience fucking up this planet may have little bearing on the whole thing.
Having said all that, I hope you're right!
By radostsguy, # 15. June 2008, 08:57:58
i do believe there is life out there that DONT want to know shit about our planet. i believe that they can c what we r doing to our own place, and DONT want us to fk with theirs.
i think we should, as u said jim, take care of what we fkd up here on this planet BEFORE going off to try to put our own lives on another planet and destroy that as well.
By SqueakeyCat, # 15. June 2008, 18:39:53