Thread: Tell me why this isn't the greatest miracle in materialism again ? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
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Never mind playing with the Drake equation.
There are 17 bn worlds - I love the spurious 2 significant figures I must admit - in our galaxy.
"1 in 6" star systems. Which means we can justify 1 in 10.
On the most conservative number of stars in the galaxy.
That's an average distance of 25 LY. Call it 100.
Now I'm a STRONG uniformitarian. So let's say of these 10 bn concurrent earth like worlds only 1:10 are actually in the Goldilocks zone and eliminate another 2 orders of magnitude arbitrarily, despite life starting as soon as it rains and doing technology on ooooh ALL within a few Ga: 1:1000 - not that distribution over time is linear at all. We'd all be bunched about now.
That averagely conservative figure puts 10 of us within 300 LY
Of course if we were optimistic, there are 4 x as many stars to start with. And then 100 x as many moons and other habitats. And 10 x as many xenologies - extending the Goldilocks zone by ... 10. And the arbitrary conservative factor is 0.
20 LY
Why is it that we don't bump in to each other again? Pick up each other's 'Neighbours' at least?
[ 06. April 2013, 07:53: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on
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Pass. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
E
Edited because I spelt pass wrongly!
[ 06. April 2013, 07:58: Message edited by: SusanDoris ]
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
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Like all the good stuff, it is a mystery isn't it?
Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Why is it that we don't bump in to each other again? Pick up each other's 'Neighbours' at least?
It's a fascinating mystery, isn't it? I've don't have a strong view as to why we haven't met alien life yet (assuming, of course, that we haven't yet...) but it's interesting to speculate.
A couple of theories are that (a) intelligent life forms just don't survive long enough for there to be overlap with other intelligent life, or (b) intelligent does indeed need God's 'kickstart' to get it going, and God's only done that on this little planet of ours.
What do you think, Martin?
Posted by Demas (# 24) on
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This is called the Fermi Paradox
Suggested reasons range from the prosaic (all the aliens are transmitting in Q-Waves which we haven't discovered yet) to the horrifying.
Dunno what it has to do with materialism though.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
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Kevin (if I may use your cognomen South Coast).
(a) - like Demas' Q-waves and horror - is completely blown away by the numbers even if it were reasonable.
Therefore (b).
And Demas (ooh, and correct, gain a house point), it's got to do with all the cognoscenti here being materialists. It is fashionable in modern Christianity (sorry for the tautology) to believe in God despite Him not being in the slightest bit necessary to explain existence, life and mind.
[ 06. April 2013, 08:12: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Demas:
This is called the Fermi Paradox
Cheers for the link, Demas. That's really interesting. And it's made me think I need to get reading some more sci-fi!
Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on
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It's a mystery to me - in that I can't understand a word of it. ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
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All Greek eh?
Posted by Demas (# 24) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
It is fashionable in modern Christianity (sorry for the tautology) to believe in God despite Him not being in the slightest bit necessary to explain existence, life and mind.
On the other hand, existence, life and mind are necessary to believe in God...
You describe a position modern Christianity was forced into unwillingly, not one joyfully embraced.
Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
All Greek eh?
ναί
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
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Demas - it's joyfully embraced round here. Nice rhetorical comeback on necessity.
Posted by Demas (# 24) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Demas - it's joyfully embraced round here.
Naah. We're just trying to convince ourselves. Find us a decent miracle-working holy relic and watch us change our tune.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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Tell me again what this has to do with materialism. Do you mean that theism explains why there might be life on only one planet out of 17 billion? Does it?
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
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Demas - implicit in the following methinks: Oh Wing-ed Serpent, of course.
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on
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Seeing as for most of the earth's history, life was single cells of prokaryotes, and prokaryotes don't travel let alone communicate, and we've only been trying to listen for <100 years, the likelihood that any 'neighbours' would be available for communication is pretty well non-existent. The vast spans of billions of years swallows all. Time.
Further, there is no directionality to evolution on earth, so why would we expect complex life to be available. Most is probably a soup of organic molecules and simple cells. Nothing more.
So no paradox, no miracle.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
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quote:
Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard: 20 LY
Why is it that we don't bump in to each other again? Pick up each other's 'Neighbours' at least?
20 lightyears is still an awfully long distance for anything but radio waves.
Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on
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quote:
Originally posted by no prophet
...simple cells...
I've never heard of "simple cells".
I have certainly heard of mind-blowingly complex ones though...
Care to elaborate?
(Downstairs in DH?)
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
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quote:
no prophet: Seeing as for most of the earth's history, life was single cells of prokaryotes, and prokaryotes don't travel let alone communicate, and we've only been trying to listen for <100 years, the likelihood that any 'neighbours' would be available for communication is pretty well non-existent.
This is covered by the Drake equation. I'm quite sure that it gives a distance bigger than 20 light years.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
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quote:
It's a wonderful world.
Louis Armstrong
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
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quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
It's a wonderful world.
Louis Armstrong
Or Israel Kamakawiwo'ole.
Posted by Cedd007 (# 16180) on
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The figures suggested for the Drake formula have had their ups and downs over the years. So there is room for speculation. I reckon it's one species per galaxy cluster. Providential.
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on
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quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet
...simple cells...
I've never heard of "simple cells".
I have certainly heard of mind-blowingly complex ones though...
Care to elaborate?
(Downstairs in DH?)
Prokaryotes: cells without organelles, i.e., no nucleus, no mitochondria etc, single strand of DNA. Most of the earth's history is these, along with eukaryotes which have organelles. If these organisms are communicative and travel, then we will can talk and visit with our neighbours. If not, not.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
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quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
A couple of theories are that (a) intelligent life forms just don't survive long enough for there to be overlap with other intelligent life, or (b) intelligent does indeed need God's 'kickstart' to get it going, and God's only done that on this little planet of ours.
Or (c) human-level intelligence is an incredibly rare trait for organisms to develop. We're doing this again?
[ 06. April 2013, 16:46: Message edited by: Crœsos ]
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
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no prophet, of course there's directionality, teleology, complexity from simplicity, nature - biology - finds a way. By materialism chemistry did. And you fell for one of the greatest fallacies. They've been transmitting for a billion years. To which: LeRoc. Neighbours is on telly. Radio waves. Stars manage to transmit them over millions of light years. Billions. One of the cognoscenti will know how far we can detect them. Ah, there's one in Eridanus. 5 GLY. That's before we build a billion kilometer array. So we can easily detect deliberate interstellar radio over a thousand LY now. A hundred is nowt. Lased nukes.
But I'm sure you clever young chaps - Oi, Croesos! - will find a way to make the Fermi Paradox go away again.
[ 06. April 2013, 17:02: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
And you fell for one of the greatest fallacies. They've been transmitting for a billion years.
Not exactly. Any transmission is on a billion year (or however long) delay. That says nothing about the duration of the transmission. Transmitting for five minutes a billion years ago is still only five minutes of transmission, even when it reaches a point a billion light years away. If you're not listening at the exact right five minutes, the signal will pass you by.
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
no prophet, of course there's directionality, teleology, complexity from simplicity, nature - biology - finds a way.
I wish there was. Evolution is merely 'adaptation to local conditions'. Has nothing to do with direction. Not about improvement, just the organisms' selection for survival to the changes over lengthy periods of time, and/or to sudden change. So we need to consider carefully our place in the cosmos. While life may be common, life beyond that of at most small conglomerations of cells will be rare as rare can be. Consider Evolutionary Time Lines, where the history of life involving smarty-pants humans is a really small sliver. As Mark Twain put it, if the history of the planet was signified by the Eiffel Tower, the last lick of paint on the top-most bolt at the very peak of the tower signifies the time humans have been here (much much less than that if we consider communication and transportation issues as suggested by the OP). But the lick of paint is too thick, Twain used Lord Kelvin's number which short by a factor of 10 or 15. Maybe if you rubbed your hand on the top of that bolt, not even seeing the few molecules on your palm - that would signify the span of human history.
Most of the history of the earth didn't have any life and when it occurred, didn't vary from little single cells for almost the entire time. The miracle is only that we're here at all talking about it. Life may be common, but life we could talk to? Regrettably, probably isn't out there. I'll have to see it before I believe. Me and St Thomas.
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
All Greek eh?
ναί
Hostly cough
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
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I think we're being quarantined, at least until we get our shit together.
Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I think we're being quarantined, at least until we get our shit together.
C.L. Lewis proposed that, too. I don't remember which book.
Posted by malik3000 (# 11437) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I think we're being quarantined, at least until we get our shit together.
C.L. Lewis proposed that, too. I don't remember which book.
That was the premise of his Space Trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength).
I too am confused as to exactly what materialism has to do with the subject of this thread. However, if there are civilised sentient species on other worlds, the reason why we may not have bumped into each other might be that no one has been able to make faster-than-light travel work.
And whether or not life requires a kick-start from the Creator, i don't see what difference that makes in whether or not we would bump into each other.
[ 07. April 2013, 04:57: Message edited by: malik3000 ]
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
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quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
intelligent does indeed need God's 'kickstart' to get it going, and God's only done that on this little planet of ours
Oh dear, God of the Gaps again. Here's something else in science we don't understand; isn't it a good job that we can posit an inscrutable omnipotent Being to "explain" it.
Extrapolating from a single data point gives so much scope...
Russ
(caught in cynical mood this morning)
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
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Aye Crœsos (sorry for missing the diphthong), we're doing this again. I Oi'ed you because I value your contributions most highly and we crossed in the post: you'd posted while I Oi'ed you. AND your point about us not listening for the five minute call sign once in a billion years don't cut it. Anyone transmitting will be doing it frequently. Like no prophet - and me of course - this looks like above all dispositional, selective rhetoric. By materialism we are inevitable.
Posted by Pyx_e (# 57) on
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Martin, you start from the premise of wanting life on other planets. Then create a formula to make your dream come true.
I would dispute many of your assumptions if not all. We are unique. And I am the most unique.
Fly Safe, Pyx_e
Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on
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It is, of course, possible, that the universe is seething with very intelligent living beings - who have come to the conclusion that science, technology, and looking out into the universe for fulfilment instead of into their own hearts, are ultimately futile activities.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
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Pyx_e - On no I don't. And indeed you are the uniquest of the unique. Whereas I am unique just like everyone else.
The equation ain't mine and it is overwhelmingly irrelevant in the face of my absurdly simplistic faith in strong determinism (life starts when rain does and you'll have it talking to itself on social network sites within oooooh ten trillion (10,000,000,000,000) generations), with which you MUST disagree and the fact that 16.6666...% (16,666,666,666) of our galaxy's minimally 100,000,000,000 stars (and scientists, I ask you, REALLY) are estimated to have earth like worlds.
And furthermore I DON'T want there to be life elsewhere for the sake of my finger painted apologetics. But I REALLY, really, ever so want there to be no doubt. And although only Crœsos has given me cause to doubt, the latest figures are pretty persuasive to someone of my weak minded disposition.
To HAVE to believe that of ten billion worlds where life started as soon as it started raining that none have radio within 100 light years (interstellar travel is irrelevant) because evolving to that capability MUST be ever so rare looks, again, like ... superstition.
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
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To borrow from sci-fi, perhaps we're not (yet) interesting.
Posted by Custard (# 5402) on
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It's almost impossible a priori to tell the difference between an event so improbable that it would happen only once in the last 4.5 billion years on somewhere the size of Earth and something so improbably that it would happen only once in the last 13 billion years in somewhere the size of our galaxy.
The fact that we haven't yet discovered any alien life suggests that the origin of life is staggeringly improbably rather than just very improbable.
And as I used to enjoy pointing out to my pupils when I taught this stuff, you only count as intelligent life for the purposes of SETI if you can build a radio or laser or something...
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
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Here, it rained, Shazan. Not only do we not need a landing on the White House lawn, we don't need to pick up their 'Neighbours' either: just detect more than trace oxygen in any of the 16,666,666,666 planetary systems of which we've looked at 667 or 4.00 x 10^-6 % or 1/24987506.24587706
And if we look at every last one and find nowt, fanatic materialists, ESPECIALLY Christians, will STILL say that life is obviously difficult to initiate everywhere else except our very mediocre little wet rock for perfectly valid 'scientificalistical' reasons that we haven't the faintest idea of.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
AND your point about us not listening for the five minute call sign once in a billion years don't cut it. Anyone transmitting will be doing it frequently.
My point was that you gave no reason to support your assertion that "[t]hey've been transmitting for a billion years". That seems like an awfully long time, especially given that we're not even entirely sure our own transmissions make it past the edge of the heliosphere. What's the basis for your assumption of billion year long transmissions?
quote:
Originally posted by Custard:
The fact that we haven't yet discovered any alien life suggests that the origin of life is staggeringly improbably rather than just very improbable.
Not necessarily. It could just be that the development of human-level intelligence is staggeringly improbable. See my earlier post for an explanation as to why this seems fairly reasonable.
Posted by DonLogan2 (# 15608) on
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Love the heading in Fermi paradox that states "They are too busy online" as a reason we haven`t seen any evidence of them...made me chuckle muchly.
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
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quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
Seeing as for most of the earth's history, life was single cells of prokaryotes, and prokaryotes don't travel let alone communicate, and we've only been trying to listen for <100 years, the likelihood that any 'neighbours' would be available for communication is pretty well non-existent.
The whole point of the Drake Equation is that its trying to put numerical bounds on "pretty well non-existent". Just take those things into account and divide by your guess at the relevant number.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
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quote:
Originally posted by ken:
The whole point of the Drake Equation is that its trying to put numerical bounds on "pretty well non-existent". Just take those things into account and divide by your guess at the relevant number.
The illustrated version can be found here. As always, don't forget the hover text.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
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Croesos
Sorry nay diphthong on me phone in the middle of a kanban. And yes, sorry, there is no they, only we. We the life of the galaxy will have been whistling in the dark for a Ga.
So, how many extrasolar atmospheres do we need to look at?
Posted by Grokesx (# 17221) on
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quote:
So, how many extrasolar atmospheres do we need to look at?
Quite a lot. I recall reading that a bigwig in SETI (the one who the Jodie Foster character in Contact was based on, IIRC) said that drawing conclusions from the data they have so far would be like dipping a cup into the sea somewhere, seeing just water and concluding there are no fish in any of oceans of the world.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
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HA! 1 / 5.352e+24, fourteen orders of magnitude less (or is it more?) - I don't think so!
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
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ISTM, many of those who wonder why we have not been contacted assume an even distribution through space and time of civilisations which might have the ability to contact.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
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I wouldn't know, what makes you think that? I certainly don't.
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
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If you know a bit about radio technology, then you know that the chance of detecting even a close by alien civilisation are vanishingly small. A quick google brings up this page, which lists some of the technical problems. I would point though to "path loss" as the main problem. The idea that some alien civilisation is trying its hardest to contact us, which is absolutely required to overcome the "one in a trillion" chance that the first article lists, is plain bunk. They will do no such thing, just as we do no such thing. Instead, what potentially could make its way to us is "accidental signal leakage", like our TV signals that are spreading out from earth. But from sufficient distances, and all other star systems are at more than sufficient distances, we are basically talking about an isotropic signal. Taking the simplest formula for isotropic antennae and a TV 54 MHz signal, even to Proxima Centauri we have a loss of 339 dB. Basically, forget it. We wouldn't notice our very next door neighbours, much less anybody further away.
Mind you, I personally don't think that there is anybody out there. But that all is silent doesn't count as particularly convincing evidence for that in my book. The galaxy could be teeming with life, radio-noisy life, and we simply would not know. It's just too big a place...
Posted by Hairy Biker (# 12086) on
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quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
20 lightyears is still an awfully long distance for anything but radio waves.
It's the same distance for everything. And how far is it exactly?
1 light year is exactly 9 460 730 472 580 800 metres. That's useful because we can all work in base 10 and visualise a metre. How many can visualise how far light travels in a year? 20 light years tells me nothing (but sounds big).
[ 08. April 2013, 20:33: Message edited by: Hairy Biker ]
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
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quote:
Hairy Biker: It's the same distance for everything.
Yet, a short distance for a race car can be a long distance for an ant.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
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Guy can't spell. And light isn't a type of radio wave. Oh and watt's the power of the Voyager transmitters? Only 16 light hours away admittedly. 0.002 LY. ...
Disposition is ALL guys.
Including his.
All irrelevant, just keep looking for oxygen. He's right on the interferometer.
Posted by Grokesx (# 17221) on
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quote:
HA! 1 / 5.352e+24, fourteen orders of magnitude less (or is it more?) - I don't think so!
If that's a reply to my post - The SETI woman's name's Jill Tarter - I'm sure she'll appreciate you putting her straight.
One thing you don't seem to have factored in - I can't actually be sure, your posts can be confusing - is the fact that astronomers classify as "earth like" planets that are composed mainly of silicates or metals. So whenever you see an estimate of earth like planet numbers, it's an estimate of the number of planets as similar to Earth as Mars, Venus and Mercury are. In terms of life, that's not necessarily similar at all.
Because here's the thing - the water on dear old earth is the crucial factor for our type of life and we don't actually yet know how it got here so we can't make an informed estimate as to how many of the billions of planets (17 billion or a 100 billion - take your pick) are really like Earth and how many are like Venus, Mars or Mercury.
Posted by Mockingale (# 16599) on
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Maybe other intelligent races have observed us and just don't find us that interesting.
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
And light isn't a type of radio wave.
That depends on your frame of reference
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
IIRC Fermi's original idea wasn;t about radio transmissions it was about interstellar travel. That there is no-one else round here strongly suggests that interstellar travel is not possible.
Posted by TomOfTarsus (# 3053) on
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Well, even all them meters is pretty much incomprehensible for most of us.
I always thought little Calvin summed it up nicely in the second pane of this comic strip.
As a Christian, I see a rather simple lesson in it:
1. I put you there to take care of the earth, love me, and love one another.
2. Until you learn to do that, you ain't going nowhere!
Doesn't mean we don't keep trying to search, explore, discover - I watch developments from the Mars probes with great interest, and I'd love to go into space just for spin or two on the ISS, f'rintance. But unless we make a truly paradigm changing discovery, we has been noted, finding anyone else (if they are there) is worse than the needle-in-a-haystack proposition; and going there is frankly impossible with our current technical repertoire.
And from that, I draw my lesson... we'll have this old earth destroyed before we get anywhere at this rate!
eta: Meant to reply to HarryBiker, CP'd with everybody and their uncle Pete!
[ 09. April 2013, 16:56: Message edited by: TomOfTarsus ]
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
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quote:
Mockingale: Maybe other intelligent races have observed us and just don't find us that interesting.
There's another solution to Fermi's paradox that is used a lot in Hardcore Science Fiction books:
The Galaxy is actually teeming with life, but most races are very hostile. In fact, the fact that we are alerting half of this Sector to our presence by beaming out radio and television waves might not be a very good idea...
Posted by TomOfTarsus (# 3053) on
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LeRoc:
Well, you must admit, if they are anything at all like us, we may indeed wish to keep a low profile...
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
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Grokesx - the 'math' isn't difficult, it's not exactly rocket science. Minds immeasurably superior to ours will correct me I'm sure.
TomOfTarsus ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
Posted by Grokesx (# 17221) on
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@Martin
The difficulty or otherwise of the maths is irrelevant when you're pulling figures out of your arse.
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Pyx_e:
Martin, you start from the premise of wanting life on other planets. Then create a formula to make your dream come true.
I would dispute many of your assumptions if not all. We are unique. And I am the most unique.
Fly Safe, Pyx_e
You could also use that argument for the existence of God.
Posted by TomOfTarsus (# 3053) on
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Martin:
Thank you, I don't get those often - ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
When I was a kid, the UFO thing was huge, books, stories, all that stuff - I read a book as a pre-teen (maybe 8 or 9 years old?) that scared the socks off of me, about reports of people seeing aliens peering in their windows, and shots being fired through doors and windows in a panicked attempt to fight beings from another world. The photographs were convincing - hey my Google-fu is good, "Flying Saucers - Serious Business" by Frank Edwards - and for a youngster it was both exhilarating and terrifying.
Then, one night, I went outside just as a searchlight beam swept across a low cloud deck - some car dealership opening, I suppose - and I tore back into the house in mortal terror, sure that they have arrived - and I do mean that stage of hysterical panic seldom seen in a soul, it took my poor folks a while to calm me down and convince me to go back out and see what my dad saw right away.
Fast Forward to my present thinking, nigh 50 years on...and yeah - they may well be out there, Drake, Fermi and the rest - whatever, I'm an engineer I could fiddle with the numbers easy enough - but the "theology" such as it is, of such an encounter, or the possibility of it, is kinda fascinating.
Here, for instance is what, supposedly, we'd all like to say to an alien race (i.e. one that was like us enough to be able to respond). Fortuitous that I ran across this today. Among them are -
- We feel alone and are afraid of our own violent tendencies.
- Then we want to show them our great mathematical expressions (which, to anyone who could get here, would be like cave paintings to us, though may be more relevant to a planet-bound race in similar circumstances - except now we're back to the needle-in-a-haystack thing)
- Peace, love and friendship - our nobler side that we are aware of.
-"Please help"
- You are alien to us but you have know-how.
These last three are our wishes for a savior, or a Messiah, I think. We know we're screwed up, but somehow we think (or hope) that a race that could get here would be noble, or "unfallen". Well, it had better be, because we would be to them as cattle at very best - a curiosity, some sort primitive, yet self-aware thing - the great essay "They're Made of Meat" comes to mind. And they would have the power to do with us exactly as they pleased.
And so we come to Science vs. Myth - The science of looking for life elsewhere is just fine, but the myth, ISTM, is quite different - just as the science of studying evolution is far different from the myth of evolution, which I cannot believe.
Blessings,
Tom
(dang it - I did proofread!)
[ 10. April 2013, 17:13: Message edited by: TomOfTarsus ]
Posted by Freddy (# 365) on
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quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
The galaxy could be teeming with life, radio-noisy life, and we simply would not know. It's just too big a place...
That's the answer in my book as well. Thank you for expressing it so clearly.
I believe that there are millions of planets with life just like ours. They are just so far away that any kind of contact with them will forever be a literal impossibility.
It does not mean, however, that we will never know about them with certainty. Since there is no time or space in the afterlife we will be satisfied with whatever proofs we need, provided we remember the question. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
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That makes mine a smart arse Grokesx.
And TomOfTarsus and in fact again.
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on
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And another solution to the Fermi paradox: life originated 9.7 billion years ago, thus before the existence of earth, was seeded here and by a "genetic Moore's law" we are simply among the very first life forms to evolve to human-scale complexity. We don't see anybody else, yet, because we are the leaders of the pack.
Do I believe this? Not for a second, but it is a cool concept and a new take on things.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
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Dah. Metallicity.
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