|
Source: (consider it)
|
Thread: Purgatory: Would UFO's destroy your belief in the Church?
|
Bane-of-piety
Apprentice
# 15267
|
Posted
In the Church Hell yes. In God, of course not.
--------------------
My dogma was old and sick...
So, I had it put to sleep :)
Posts: 28 | From: United States | Registered: Nov 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
Those who would find it absurd today, would have found it absurd to hear it suggested, 2000 years ago in Jerusalem, that the Messiah came from as remote a backwater as Galilee.
Even though they had the testimony of God that he hadn't chosen the nation of Isreal because they were the largest, most powerful nation.
I find it hard to figure out why people who believe in a God who chose to adopt such a puny, insignificant, and frankly more trouble than they were worth people like the descendents of Israel would have trouble thinking that the human race isn't the pinnacle of creation.
--------------------
Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:
This actually encapsulates one of my main objections to religion. It was one thing to believe that human affairs were of cosmic importance in a Genesis system centred on the Earth with humans placed at the pinnacle of it. However, we now have significant understanding of the immense size and age of the universe and how it works. Against that background to believe that something that happened to us impacted throughout the whole universe is really taking human arrogance and self-centredness to new heights.
That is the golf-ball fallacy.
Golfer hits ball. It lands on a blade of grass. There are maybe five or ten million grass plants within range of the golfer. The odds against that particular blade of grass being hit are ten million to one! Must be something very special about it.
--------------------
Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Pre-cambrian
Shipmate
# 2055
|
Posted
The unfortunate thing about this fallacy is that it has absolutely nothing to do with what I wrote. The implication of Eliab's argument was that when the golf ball hits a blade of grass on the 13th fairway it benefits a grain of sand in a bunker on the 15th green. Nobody has raised the probability of that blade of grass being hit.
--------------------
"We cannot leave the appointment of Bishops to the Holy Ghost, because no one is confident that the Holy Ghost would understand what makes a good Church of England bishop."
Posts: 2314 | From: Croydon | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:
The implication of Eliab's argument was that when the golf ball hits a blade of grass on the 13th fairway it benefits a grain of sand in a bunker on the 15th green.
Correct.
The only misapprehension that you are (or were) under was that I was saying something about the importance of the blade of grass, rather than something about the importance of the ball.
To change the metaphor slightly - suppose you were a regular at a bog-standard golf course, and one day Tiger Woods turned up to play a quick 18 holes. You might (if you were a fan) put up a picture of the great man on the club-house notice board with the words "Tiger Woods played here".
The fact that the visitation occurred for one day only, and that Mr Woods' ball only touched a miniscule area of the total, would not stop you claiming the honour for the whole course. Every blade of grass, every grain of sand, would be part of the course on which Tiger Woods once played. The extent to which that mattered to you would depend on the esteem in which you held him - it would say nothing at all about the merits of the particular patches of turf on which his ball rested.
Your argument about the size of the universe is rather like an assertion that the older members of the golf club were under the delusion that the course was a 9-hole municipal pitch-and-putt, whereas modern science has established that it is in fact composed of three enormous 18-hole circuits. You might be right, but in fact it makes no difference. Everyone is agreed that Tiger Woods actually came into contact with a tiny part of the whole course, even if the whole is rather bigger than was hitherto imagined. The appropriateness of the club-house boast depends on how big you think the champion is, not on the dimensions of the playing area.
--------------------
"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Nicolemr
Shipmate
# 28
|
Posted
Christus Apollo by Ray Bradbury
quote:
And wonder as we look among the stars
Did He know these?
In some far universal Deep
Did He tread Space
And visit worlds beyond our blood-warm dreaming?
Did He come down on lonely shore by sea
Not unlike Galilee
And are there Mangers on far worlds that knew His light?
And Virgins?
Sweet Pronouncements?
Annunciations? Visitations from angelic hosts?...
...It must be so.
For in this time of Christmas
In the long Day totalling up to Eight,
We see the light, we know the dark;
And creatures lifted, born, thrust free of so much night
No matter what the world or time or circumstance
Must love the light,
So, children of all lost unnumbered suns
Must fear the dark
Which mingles in a shadowing-forth on air.
And swarms the blood.
No matter what the color, shape, or size
Of beings who keep souls like breathing coals
In long midnights,
They must need saving of themselves....
(This is a long quote, but the original is longer still, so I feel this isn't too much)
One of the most beautiful examinations of the possibility of Incarnation on other worlds that I've ever seen.
--------------------
On pilgrimage in the endless realms of Cyberia, currently traveling by ship. Now with live journal!
Posts: 11803 | From: New York City "The City Carries On" | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bane-of-piety:
In the Church Hell yes. In God, of course not.
So you believe in the Church now, but wouldn't if we found life on other planets. Why?
--------------------
This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
Because it's orthodox Alan. And your disposition isn't.
Because IngoB is sort of right (apart from inferring somehow that my faith is predicated on top of the obviously lifeless cosmos). God the only and eternally begotten Son came ONCE as a human and continues to be one.
The parsimonius fact from self-refuted materialism that there is NO extraterrestrial life complements this.
Must resurrect your upstream assumptions and reasoning some time.
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
I think it could be fitting that humanity is the only rational species that fell, and that as a result, God become a member of that species and through that has poured his grace into the whole cosmos in a new way. We might be the only lost sheep, but our rescue blesses the rest of the flock by proving how far the shepherd was willing to go to save any one of us. That seems to me to be a good fit with what we have in the gospel.
First, if we do take serious the connection between the fall and death, then we have unequivocal evidence that this is not the case: death is everywhere we look in the universe, and given finite light speed, death is there at all times. Of course, we are only observing stars, galaxies, quasars and the like. But even if one does not want to attribute "life" to those (and I do wish to do so, in this context: I do not believe that suns will cease to shine in New Creation), then certainly whatever life may exist around a sun will see its existence challenged if the sun blows in a supernova (or "fails" in less dramatic ways). As far as we can see, where "far" is both spatiotemporal and logical, it's the same old all over the place. Thus if there are non-fallen aliens out there, then either they are protected in localized bubbles of non-fallen universe, or St Paul has it wrong. I find neither convincing, so very likely the entire (visible-to-us) universe is fallen and all potential aliens in it hence as well.
Second, we are not particularly desperate to interpret the parable in this way, are we? It is not like our eyes are finally opened to this part of scripture because we consider it to refer to aliens. Rather, we know several standard interpretations for this parable, and we are just possibly adding yet another meaning. It is of course possible that Christ's parable had this additional layer of meaning, but it is neither necessary nor does it follow out of the text and the times. Whereas in fact our standard interpretations do fit easily into the historical and textual context.
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
God's ideal number of rebels might well have been zero. If he permits one fall, because he made us free, then he might also permit the Klingons to fall, even though it spoils the poetry of having only a single sheep go astray.
That does not work for me. It makes free will something external to the will of God. God has to wait and see what we or the Klingons do, and if it screws up His designs, too bad. Adam was responsible for his actions, since he in fact had free will. But if God had willed the universe to be free of rebels, then it would be free of rebels. There is no such thing as resisting the will of God - not because He's such a powerful being, but because God's will is existence itself. God willed that Adam freely willed his fall. That's mind-bending, but only because God is the Author of reality. If we talk about a human author writing a story, then we have no problem seeing the two levels: one one hand the will of the author, who is responsible for inventing dramatic characters to make an interesting story, on the other hand those dramatic characters within the story, who are in the story responsible for their actions. Otherwise drama would cease to be. If we look at a play of Shakespeare, then it is not helpful to say "the actor does whatever Shakespeare wants". That's true, but ignores the levels involved, and hence does not tell us much.
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
I don't think its the repetition itself that I'd object to, as much as the localisation of the effects of the Incarnation/Resurrection/Ascension. If it needed to happen a billion times that would not (for me) diminish the importance of the story that especially applied to me and to my world. I would, however, feel that the importance was diminished in that I had once thought that one act of God had been enough to bring about a cosmic redemption, and I would have to readjust that to being the redemption of only one planet. Are we disagreeing or just expressing the same point differently here?
I would say that we are ultimately agreeing, because you are contradicting yourself...
Let me add that I see only one strong counter-argument to my thesis of no alien life from scripture: the plan of salvation is clearly ever expanding around a specific center. "God's people" went from one couple to a family to tribes to nation to world, while at the same time retaining a focus on particular people (culminating in a historical human being, Jesus Christ). The interface between the many and the few (or now the one Christ) is provided by layers of representation, which we call "Church" these days. So if there are aliens out there after all, then I expect them to be fallen, and I expect that it is up to us, in particular up to us as Church, to bring salvation to them in the form of Jesus Christ the human Messiah. This is in strict contradiction to the "democratic" view of salvation must people seem to have here. I think that is completely wrong. If there are aliens after all, then Starship Enterprise should be stocked to the rim with Christian missionaries and the Prime Directive is revealed as a work of the devil. If there are aliens, then they will bend their tentacles to Jesus Christ, the God-human.
That said, I think there are no aliens. And that's because God is merciful. For I also think that it is likely correct that the angels fell because of us, as some traditions hold. Basically, Lucifer - foremost angel that he was - could see the Incarnation coming, and he said "You've got to be kidding me. Over my dead spirit!" A human is a Divine Person, and Our Lady is set above all angels, which is just stunning, a bit like humans making a nematode president of the world. I think God made a point, a point important enough to spiritually kill a significant part of His angels, and He is not likely to let more persons burn in hell just because they cannot deal with the outrageous primacy given to humans in salvation - in particular not more corporeal persons, who cannot ever be expected to act with the clarity of incorporeal ones.
--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
[QB]First, if we do take serious the connection between the fall and death, then we have unequivocal evidence that this is not the case: death is everywhere we look in the universe ... Thus if there are non-fallen aliens out there, then either they are protected in localized bubbles of non-fallen universe, or St Paul has it wrong.
Or, the connection between physical death and fallenness is not as certain as the two options you give would suggest.
--------------------
Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
sanityman
Shipmate
# 11598
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Basically, Lucifer - foremost angel that he was - could see the Incarnation coming, and he said "You've got to be kidding me. Over my dead spirit!"
I'm pretty sure I remember a part of the Screwtape Letters which said this, and gave it as reason for the Fall of Lucifer. Of course, Screwtape's take on events is not entirely to be trusted... ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
I'm not quite sure what to make of what you say equating stellar death to the physical death of organisms. My first thought was that they are very different things, as different as nuclear physics and biochemistry. My second was that I rather liked the Narnian imagery. The third was that, if it were true, the Fall of Man actually onotogically effected the transformation of the entire universe, very basic laws of physics included. In fact, it could be said that it destroyed the universe and replaced it with a new one (or at least, placed us in a new one) as a universe without stellar death is one in which the very fundamental laws would be unrecognisable.
I just don't think we have the sort of power to take the universe down with us. I don't think we are cosmically the most significant thing in the entire universe, and that if God loves us, it's because "not a sparrow falls from the branch" rather than because we're the big Kahuna. But I'm not a big fan of anthropic hubris in general. In the absence of factual evidence, this is more about my personal disposition than the way the universe is.
- Chris.
--------------------
Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only the wind will listen - TS Eliot
Posts: 1453 | From: London, UK | Registered: Jun 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
|
Posted
It was not C.S. Lewis who first thought of Lucifer being enraged by human primacy...
There is a very, very peculiar pain attached to being the only ones. It is a very, very peculiar craving to wish that it be otherwise. We would prefer being eaten by truck-sized cockroaches over being alone. We would prefer the world of Starship Troopers over just us. People often claim that we are looking for companionship among the stars. But giant cockroaches are no companions, and our Avatars are laughably human. Perhaps we are looking for someone to share the blame.
Let's also not forget how hysterically trapped we are. It takes all human ingenuity to even escape the gravity well we call home. The stars? They are not ours. They may as well be candles lit in the sky, for all the chance we have of getting to them.
--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
First, if we do take serious the connection between the fall and death, then we have unequivocal evidence that this is not the case:
Of course, we don't have to take that connection seriously. Many of us don't.
Besides which, according to Christianity Jesus has already defeated death. Yet we still die. Hm, maybe physical (as opposed to spiritual) death isn't the death the fall is linked to?
quote:
Thus if there are non-fallen aliens out there, then either they are protected in localized bubbles of non-fallen universe, or St Paul has it wrong.
Even accepting that the fall and death are inextricably connected (which I don't), it's not that hard a concept to think that one silly little fallen human got something wrong.
quote:
There is no such thing as resisting the will of God - not because He's such a powerful being, but because God's will is existence itself. God willed that Adam freely willed his fall. That's mind-bending, but only because God is the Author of reality. If we talk about a human author writing a story, then we have no problem seeing the two levels: one one hand the will of the author, who is responsible for inventing dramatic characters to make an interesting story, on the other hand those dramatic characters within the story, who are in the story responsible for their actions. Otherwise drama would cease to be. If we look at a play of Shakespeare, then it is not helpful to say "the actor does whatever Shakespeare wants". That's true, but ignores the levels involved, and hence does not tell us much.
That's only the case because the characters in a play or novel aren't really real. The only way your comparison works is if we are as real to God as characters in a book are to the author, and every reading of Christianity I know of says we're far more that that to Him.
quote:
So if there are aliens out there after all, then I expect them to be fallen, and I expect that it is up to us, in particular up to us as Church, to bring salvation to them in the form of Jesus Christ the human Messiah.
This is in strict contradiction to the "democratic" view of salvation must people seem to have here. I think that is completely wrong. If there are aliens after all, then Starship Enterprise should be stocked to the rim with Christian missionaries and the Prime Directive is revealed as a work of the devil. If there are aliens, then they will bend their tentacles to Jesus Christ, the God-human.
My god, the arrogance is blinding.
Though I genuinely do believe that you'd rather lead a Holy Crusade across the cosmos than allow any puative ETI to change your dearly-held beliefs.
quote:
That said, I think there are no aliens. And that's because God is merciful. For I also think that it is likely correct that the angels fell because of us, as some traditions hold. Basically, Lucifer - foremost angel that he was - could see the Incarnation coming, and he said "You've got to be kidding me. Over my dead spirit!" A human is a Divine Person, and Our Lady is set above all angels, which is just stunning, a bit like humans making a nematode president of the world. I think God made a point, a point important enough to spiritually kill a significant part of His angels, and He is not likely to let more persons burn in hell just because they cannot deal with the outrageous primacy given to humans in salvation - in particular not more corporeal persons, who cannot ever be expected to act with the clarity of incorporeal ones.
And you know what? I also genuinely believe that you'd rather burn in Hell than change your dearly-held beliefs to fit any new facts that came about. I mean, look at what you've just posted: you're identifying with the attitude displayed by Lucifer!
It's truly scary that your beliefs are more important to you than the truth. Alright, so while that truth is purely hypothetical either one of us could be wrong, but somehow I sense that were ETI proved to exist you'd still choose to cling to your worldview, however incorrect it had been proved to be.
--------------------
Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
sanityman
Shipmate
# 11598
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
It was not C.S. Lewis who first thought of Lucifer being enraged by human primacy...
No - but in any case, that wasn't quite the point that Lewis was making: quote:
Originally written by Screwtape in a PM to Wormwood:
"When the creation of man was first mooted and when, even at that stage the Enemy [God] freely confessed that he foresaw a certain episode about a cross, Our Father [Lucifer] very naturally sought an interview and asked for an explanation... It was, I imagine, at this stage in the interview that Our Father's disgust at such an unprovoked lack of confidence caused him to remove himself an infinite distance from the Presence with a suddenness which has given rise to the ridiculous enemy story that he was forcibly thrown out of heaven."
I read this as Lucifer protesting against the profligacy of Divine disinterested love rather than a protest about humanity being promoted over his head. I can see how you get that from Catholic theology, but I don't think that was what Lewis said. However one reads it, it still stands as an example of the creation of man occasioning the fall of Lucifer (although Lewis' Interplanetary Trilogy "theology" has Lucifer as the ruling spirit of Earth only, so no universe-wide fall there).
quote:
Let's also not forget how hysterically trapped we are. It takes all human ingenuity to even escape the gravity well we call home. The stars? They are not ours. They may as well be candles lit in the sky, for all the chance we have of getting to them.
Yes, I agree. Look how much effort it took us to get to the moon - then consider that that was only done as a propaganda blow against a Cold War enemy. I don't think we have the motivation or the capability, and I see no sign of either changing outside of SF. The distances involved make a pretty good prison wall (Cygnus Alpha?).
- Chris.
--------------------
Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only the wind will listen - TS Eliot
Posts: 1453 | From: London, UK | Registered: Jun 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Besides which, according to Christianity Jesus has already defeated death. Yet we still die. Hm, maybe physical (as opposed to spiritual) death isn't the death the fall is linked to?
Or maybe Christ hasn't come again yet, and this isn't New Creation, but the old.
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
it's not that hard a concept to think that one silly little fallen human got something wrong.
I happen to believe that scripture was inspired by God. That leaves plenty of room for misunderstanding, of course, and maybe I'm misunderstanding St Paul. However, you have not argued that. Instead you simply assert that the letters of St Paul contain an actual falsehood concerning an important teaching about faith. I cannot believe that, sorry.
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
That's only the case because the characters in a play or novel aren't really real. The only way your comparison works is if we are as real to God as characters in a book are to the author, and every reading of Christianity I know of says we're far more that that to Him.
We are, of course, much less real compared to God than characters of fiction compared to their human author. For once written and published, fictional characters do not depend on their human author anymore. Others can make them come alive by reading the story. And these characters can even develop a kind of life of their own, by influencing other humans. However, if God ceases to support our being, then we instantly are no more. And there is nobody but God for us to live in, since there are no gods beside Him. We are nothing held in existence by the explicit and continuous will of God alone. God has chosen to maintain this figment of His imagination for ever. And that is indeed greater than what a human author does...
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
My god, the arrogance is blinding. Though I genuinely do believe that you'd rather lead a Holy Crusade across the cosmos than allow any puative ETI to change your dearly-held beliefs.
Do you have any factual rationale for calling me arrogant here? No, of course not. We have no facts on aliens, much less on God's will for aliens. The only thing you have is some ideology in your head that suggests that democracy is the ultimate good, therefore salvation must be organized democratically, and since aliens are "people" of some kind, they must participate equally in salvation. Well, news flash, not once in salvation history has God acted according to you ideology. Not once. Salvation comes from the Jews, in fact, ultimately just from one particular 1stC Palestine Jew. So, are you going to complain to God that He isn't following your democratic ideology? How arrogant is that?
As for Holy Crusades, I'm not sure where you are getting that from. Unless perhaps if you consider all missionary activity to be "crusading". In which case - oh yes, I'm all for such "crusading". In fact, as far as earth itself is concerned I think lots of such activity is still needed, because I'm told not everybody is Christian (and indeed Roman Catholic...) yet. Clearly this is not an acceptable state to leave humanity in.
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
And you know what? I also genuinely believe that you'd rather burn in Hell than change your dearly-held beliefs to fit any new facts that came about. I mean, look at what you've just posted: you're identifying with the attitude displayed by Lucifer!
You heap deadly insult on utter bullshit. I've already said what I would do if aliens were discovered: I would think hard about the Incarnation, quite possibly leaving the Church over my conclusions. How that supports your claims of inflexibility I do not know. Me thinks you confuse intensity with inflexibility, as if only the lukewarm could change. I have changed religion (not denomination) twice in the last ten years. However, I have no time for half measures. And where the heck do you see anything remotely like Lucifer's attitude in what I say? If God would happen to reveal His plans to me, I would bow to them without the slightest hesitation. Yet if God only reveals to me that there are aliens, then it is still up to me to come to some conclusion what that means. I'm talking here about that latter case.
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
It's truly scary that your beliefs are more important to you than the truth. Alright, so while that truth is purely hypothetical either one of us could be wrong, but somehow I sense that were ETI proved to exist you'd still choose to cling to your worldview, however incorrect it had been proved to be.
I'm going to look at an alien and claim that it does not exist, or what? I feel insulted personally and professionally by this. I'm a natural scientist, and I consider that to be more than a job. And as far as Christianity is concerned, I'm essentially a Thomist. Thomists face many criticisms, for sure, but that they are not interested in intellectual truth is a new one. Really. And if it were so, I would be Thomist no longer...
--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
That's only the case because the characters in a play or novel aren't really real. The only way your comparison works is if we are as real to God as characters in a book are to the author, and every reading of Christianity I know of says we're far more that that to Him.
We are, of course, much less real compared to God than characters of fiction compared to their human author. For once written and published, fictional characters do not depend on their human author anymore.
Those are two quite different meanings of "real." You're guilty of the fallacy of equivocation.
--------------------
This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Those are two quite different meanings of "real." You're guilty of the fallacy of equivocation.
Firstly, we were discussing an analogy. Secondly, I was defining how reality can be graded. Thirdly, you are not helping.
--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
|
Posted
Just stumbled (via Boing Boing) on a topical interview Senior astronomer Seth Shostak on the "Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence". It is actually quite good, thanks to a reporter actually doing her job... Some snips:
quote:
BABA: What makes you so sure there is extraterrestrial life - that might be a very basic question, but what evidence, to you, is most compelling?
SHOSTAK: Well, there isn't any evidence of extraterrestrial life, compelling evidence, yet; in fact, the bottom line is, there isn't - we haven't found ET and frankly, we haven't found pond scum. We haven't found dead pond scum. ...
But if you found life on Mars then you would know that life is just some sort of cosmic infection, it's not something miraculous because look, two worlds have it, so there must be many more.
...
BABA: So to me, it sounds like, since we haven't yet found evidence, as you're saying, of alien life, that this search may actually be driven by a belief that there's life out there, rather than scientific proof. Which to me would seem ironic, that the scientists, many of whom consider faith and belief to be non-scientific values, are throwing all of this behind a belief rather than science. Has anyone said that to you before?
I don't report his answer to the last question, because I think in a deeper sense he answered it above, second quoted paragraph.
--------------------
They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
Bliss Mr. B. Sorry Doctor B. Bliss.
Their faith - materialism - refutes itself and yet they still believe.
Touching isn't it ?
[ 16. August 2010, 18:44: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
sanityman
Shipmate
# 11598
|
Posted
It's a bit late in the thread to be saying "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." But it seems to be necessary.
- Chris.
--------------------
Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only the wind will listen - TS Eliot
Posts: 1453 | From: London, UK | Registered: Jun 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
Sophistry. Get REAL. WHERE ARE THEY THEN ? You'll be telling us that you can't prove a negative next. I seem to recall Alan doing that some years ago without a TRACE of irony.
Intellect is no defense against disposition.
This is ALLLLL about the game of rhetoric and I'm so far ahead it's embarrassing.
To fanatically, irrationally believe that there ARE aliens, that there IS ET pond scum (or was: that those microscopic iron nodules in Martian (ooh, and the METHANE!!!) meteorites could ONLY have been made by life NOT from Earth), that the more planets whose atmospheres are anoxic means we're ever closer to detecting the ones that aren't because there HAS to be, that there IS only, life by materialism is ... strange, ESPECIALLY in theists.
It's not strange at all of course. Just amusing, that in the the rebellious desperation to rationalize and liberalize God away from being anything like the somewhat demanding one of the narrative, rationalization and liberalism fail.
[ 16. August 2010, 21:31: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
sanityman
Shipmate
# 11598
|
Posted
You're right, Martin. you are ahead on rhetoric .
- Chris.
--------------------
Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only the wind will listen - TS Eliot
Posts: 1453 | From: London, UK | Registered: Jun 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
Well I WAS!
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
You'll be telling us that you can't prove a negative next. I seem to recall Alan doing that some years ago without a TRACE of irony.
Yes, science can no more prove a hypothesis is false than it can prove it to be true. Science can significantly alter the odds of a hypothesis being true or false.
Fermi's Paradox simply states that if you take a hypothesis that leads to the conclusion that intelligent life is (relatively) common and persistent then the evidence we have (ie: no ET visitors or radio signals) makes the truth of that hypothesis less likely. You can't prove from the observation that we've had no ET visitors that therefore there's no ET - because ET may call in tomorrow. Likewise, if we have an ET visitor that doesn't mean that ETI is common - we may be the only other life they've found as well.
Basically, the observational data set we have available is too small to conclude very much, except that the simpler hypotheses that conclude ETI is common are likely to be faulty somewhere by the fact that they aren't here.
--------------------
Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
I happen to believe that scripture was inspired by God. That leaves plenty of room for misunderstanding, of course, and maybe I'm misunderstanding St Paul. However, you have not argued that. Instead you simply assert that the letters of St Paul contain an actual falsehood concerning an important teaching about faith. I cannot believe that, sorry.
I can, quite easily. I can even believe it while still believing that scripture was (is) inspired by God.
All it requires is human free will, and human fallibility.
quote:
God has chosen to maintain this figment of His imagination for ever. And that is indeed greater than what a human author does...
So you don't think we're actually any more real to God than characters in a book are to the author? Just that in this case the author is much more attached to his work than usual?
quote:
Do you have any factual rationale for calling me arrogant here? No, of course not. We have no facts on aliens, much less on God's will for aliens. The only thing you have is some ideology in your head that suggests that democracy is the ultimate good, therefore salvation must be organized democratically, and since aliens are "people" of some kind, they must participate equally in salvation.
And the only thing you have is some ideology that suggests that your personal understanding of the incarnation is 100% correct, therefore if aliens exist they must be converted.
quote:
Well, news flash, not once in salvation history has God acted according to you ideology.
Not once in salvation history? We have only slightly more evidence for that than we do for aliens, and it's all made up of one book that, regardless of inspiration, was written by fallible humans.
quote:
Not once. Salvation comes from the Jews, in fact, ultimately just from one particular 1stC Palestine Jew.
Or so says that book, which was written by... Jews.
quote:
So, are you going to complain to God that He isn't following your democratic ideology? How arrogant is that?
I won't have to.
quote:
As for Holy Crusades, I'm not sure where you are getting that from. Unless perhaps if you consider all missionary activity to be "crusading". In which case - oh yes, I'm all for such "crusading". In fact, as far as earth itself is concerned I think lots of such activity is still needed, because I'm told not everybody is Christian (and indeed Roman Catholic...) yet. Clearly this is not an acceptable state to leave humanity in.
I think those few pockets of humanity that haven't been exposed to Christianity are lucky. But then, I've never felt the need to convert everyone else in the world (and/or cosmos) to my beliefs. Live and let live, I say.
quote:
I've already said what I would do if aliens were discovered: I would think hard about the Incarnation, quite possibly leaving the Church over my conclusions. How that supports your claims of inflexibility I do not know.
Inflexibility means not being able to bend without breaking. Which is exactly what you describe!
quote:
Me thinks you confuse intensity with inflexibility, as if only the lukewarm could change. I have changed religion (not denomination) twice in the last ten years.
Yes, but when you change it's a complete dscarding of the previous and a complete uptake of the new. What's wrong with simply adapting ones xisting beliefs to fit new information?
I mean, OK I can accept that aliens may change your beliefs about the incarnation. But that doesn't make everything else in Christianity wrong as well! It's not all or nothing!
quote:
However, I have no time for half measures.
Ah right. It is all or nothing.
--------------------
Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
Alan, you are a nuclear physicist. I am a pleb on the bus. But again you miss the irony. Or don't deign to stoop. Tell me you see it. Do. Please.
You don't do you ? Otherwise you wouldn't trot out that all it takes is one alien to drop in tomorrow.
Your little treatise on probability doesn't score well on the rhetorical front and reveals your disposition and intellectual inadequacies.
And I am POND SCUM saying that to a nuclear physicist. Wait till I get back at IngoB who's even smarter than you! Like you he believes in Augustine's faceless omnibot. Bender without the three layers of teeth and with every Planck tick of eternity spooled on the floor of his chest. Just a tad unparsimoniously. Unscientifically.
You MUST stoop to conquer, Alan.
You have no FEELING, no PATHOS - Ingo has some - in your narrow LOGOS for the deafening silence of the universe. Your logos is suspiciously, Aspergersesquely unwowed. Unspooked. I bet your frontal lobes just aren't polarized like poor old Dawkins' aren't.
There's a retired NASA rocket scientist on Premier, I mean he really IS savant, but not you, surely ? You're a liberal for heaven's sake.
Come on man, you can wipe the floor with me, we've been doing this kind of thing for over ten years ("That's what they call a decade.", the movie?).
My appeal is to incredulity, surely; which we ALL know is intellectually invalid. Because that's the consensus. That's 'mere' pathos. Logos trumps pathos, surely ?
I agree ! When it suits me. And it does.
You CAN'T do strong uniformitarianism, which is your unparsimonious, awkward, stubborn, rebellious disposition, I understand that. You're a rationalist and can't do God's pragmatism. Hmmm. VERY Aspergers.
And you CAN'T do it over deep time. That is intriguing. That's how Spock defeated Khan. With one less dimension of course.
The sample is 14 GY old. The local speck of it has a stellar population of easily two hundred thousand million stars. A hundred then. With a trillion planets, ten trillion moons. Easy. All within 75,000 LY. 3/4 of a million years at 0.1 c. 4% - a mere 400,000,000,000 - within 10,000 LY, 100,000 years.
Extrasolar planetary discovery has gone from 0 to 100 a year, exponentially, for 20 years. That's 1000 a YEAR in 20 years time. 10,000 if you like.
I should still be alive then and I wager you ANYTHING you name that I can possibly deliver that NONE of those 10,000 - 100,000 planets will have an oxygen atmosphere.
How rare does rare have to be and still be strongly uniformitarian ?
A purely theoretical question to you as you don't do strong uniformitarianism, which is most unparsimonious of you. Most unscientific.
C'mon Al, I WANT the rigour. I want my house of cards based on my polarized frontal lobe disposition to fall.
Or is the answer intellectualist ? Pond scum just can't see ? It's all in the Bayesian analysis, the sentential logic ? I'm not entitled to an answer as I haven't done the math ? QED.
Your man Enrico understood. But then again, he really was smart. NOTHING got in the way.
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Your little treatise on probability doesn't score well on the rhetorical front and reveals your disposition and intellectual inadequacies.
Cresswell? Intellectually inadequate? In other news, black is white and up is down. Film at 11.
--------------------
This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
sanityman
Shipmate
# 11598
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard, in reply to Alan:
You CAN'T do strong uniformitarianism, which is your unparsimonious, awkward, stubborn, rebellious disposition, I understand that. You're a rationalist and can't do God's pragmatism. Hmmm. VERY Aspergers.
Martin, I'm not trying to have a dig here, but I genuinely can't understand what you mean by "strong uniformitarianism," and how it might relate to Alan's definition of it on the previous page. I can't see how any principle of uniformity does what you claim of it. Could you give us poor mortals a definition of what you mean by it? I feel we're talking past each other here.
Also, could you comment on the fact that your argument seems to assume that at least a proportion of ET civilisations will go on to develop god-like SF technology? An alternative hypothesis would be that such technology is all a pipe dream, and that civilisations never reach out into space much more than we've done before destroying themselves in resource wars or learning to live within their planetary means - which may preclude a lot of space travel.
I know we're in the realm of pure personal preference here, but I don't understand why you'd prefer that SF technology is possible, but we're alone, rather than allow it for a flight of fantasy and leave the possibility of ET races open. Is it just the theological considerations, or do you seriously think humanity will eventually build Dyson spheres, ringworlds, and all that glorious stuff?
- Chris.
PS: I do wish you'd leave off calling Alan 'unscientific.' If he was claiming ET must exist the mud might stick, but pointing out that you shouldn't make definite statements on the basis of a lack of evidence seems to be very scientific to me.
--------------------
Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only the wind will listen - TS Eliot
Posts: 1453 | From: London, UK | Registered: Jun 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
Ess 'n' Emm.
Go wan, go wan, go wan. Stick a spade in me head and be done with it.
Alan is good and pure and true, logos through and through.
He's ABSOLUTELY right and so are you to defend him.
So ?
I'm right too. Using logos. And I'm a nasty piece of work. Old and stupid and insanely self-confident. This is all a GAME Ess 'n' Emm.
My flights of fancy are NOT fantasy. Don't break the laws of physics. We can get to the nearest stars NOW within decades. So we will. Our probes will. Your great grandchildren will see other worlds. Computing power and a 200 million mile diameter array of Hubbles will make the voyages unnecessary hubris I'm sure.
Economic growth, creeping technology (growing diamonds and/or bucky tubes from a thousand clicks out down to the surface) will make us masters of the solar system unless eschatology has any basis. Or unless Islam wins.
Strong uniformitarianism means we are AVERAGE. What YOU see out your window is AVERAGE. YOU are part of the average. Where there is average there is always extreme. Older. Smarter.
It won't mean that to Alan. So ?
And I want me dinner and 'ave ter fone me bird.
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
And Ess 'n' Emm. Don't feel sorry for Alan.
He's about the second smartest human being you will ever encounter. IngoB is the first.
I am pond scum and I'm the ONLY one here flogging this all but dead horse. Ever. There's no need for you to be Nietzsche (even though we're the same age) and come and cuddle it. I'm in a minority of ONE. Nobody agrees with me, It's my only pleasure. And I'm vicious and I'm DUMB. Mediocre. 3rd rate.
Looking for orthodoxy, I ask you. I mean, come on, I have ZERO credibility as I ACTUALLY entertain (which is a bit of an understatement) the validity if not the veracity of Genesis in ALL regards (careful now, I'm NOT a letterist). I'm a laughing stock. And that is overrating myself. A toothless gnat.
Of course NONE of that doesn't mean I'm right.
And that Alan, with whom I go wayyyyy back on this, is able to actually make a FULL, rhetorical if not antithetical case for God being bound by materialism.
Which is one step away from the Calvinist insanity of Him being bound by His arbitrary, meaningless sovereignty, not surprisingly as they have the same higly infectious Greek pagan roots.
![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif) ![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
This thread will just dry up if you don't pick at it.
But it will reincarnate and I'll be there.
Older, dumber, nastier.
[ 17. August 2010, 21:23: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
|
Posted
Martin,
I don't think you're as dumb as you make out. Eccentric and often enigmatic, certainly, but that's part of what makes your contributions to discussions here so interesting.
OK, I'm going to take a step back to Fermi and his 'paradox'. It was something he thought up over lunch following a chat about UFOs on the walk to the canteen. He'd made a few mental calculations based on some approximations (and, one thing Fermi was very good at was getting a grasp of the general principles of something and making quick approximations that were almost always not too far off), and reached the conclusion that if the Earth is typical then ET should have been here by now ... no ET, hence "where are they?" and the paradox.
But, his 'paradox' is only a paradox if all his assumptions were basically correct. Those assumptions include that the Earth is fairly typical (which is, I guess, what you're meaning by "strong uniformitarianism"), that the human desire to explore is going to be shared by a large proportion of any ETIs etc. If we remove those assumptions then the paradox disappears. If the Earth isn't typical and sits at an extreme end of the spectrum of possible planets (obviously the habitable end of the spectrum) then the number of potential ETIs from Drake drops to something very small. If the vast majority of ETIs are happy to just potter about on their own world without exploring beyond their gravity well, then the chances of one of them coming here is also very much lower. In both cases, the 'paradox' simply vanishes.
--------------------
Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
Absolutely near perfect Alan (damn your gracious eyes by the way), see, I told you you were smart.
Yes that is exactly what I mean by strong uniformitarianism (SU), that is a premiss I have always fessed up to.
If we posit SU, then the paradox stands. Why would we not ? Fermi implicitly did.
What do we have to do to Drake, maintaining SU materialism, to duck The Great Silence ?
I must dig up the New Scientist article explored by Stephen Baxter in Time, that posits why NOW - us looking out of the window NOW - is important which supports SU.
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
Ooh, and the exploratory urge is SU of course. And if it weren't, how non-SU rare would it have to be to explain what we see ? We need a new Drake with that coefficient.
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
If we posit SU, then the paradox stands. Why would we not ?
Why would we? For a start, the extrasolar planets we've discovered so far* point to the Earth being very much not typical.
Besides which, there's no reason to suppose that humanity itself is in any way typical. We may be far in advance of every other civilisation, or we may be so far behind the rest that we can't even percieve their existence. The assumption that if life out there exists it must be more advanced than us is as insupportable as the assumption that we're typical in the first place!
*= which isn't necessarily a good sample to be using, since our limited detection ability may well be artificially selecting for gas giants.
--------------------
Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Myrrh
Shipmate
# 11483
|
Posted
Because we like being crepes and not blinis.
Myrrh
Posts: 4467 | Registered: Jun 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
If we posit SU, then the paradox stands. Why would we not ? Fermi implicitly did.
If we posit SU, that the Earth and humanity are typical, then the obvious conclusion (which Fermi reached) is that there are a large number of ET civilisations - many older and more technologically advanced than ourselves. And, that even with conceivable technology (eg: generation ships) enough of those civilisations would have spread out to explore and colonise the galaxy that the chances of one or more civilisation having already visited Earth is almost certainty. The 'paradox' is that there's no evidence of any ET visitors to Earth - assuming that they're not just playing games buzzing individuals in lonely areas and would, instead, make their presence very clear.
A scientist faced with having a hypothesis that predicts something to happen with almost certainty yet finding no evidence for that result happeing would examine the hypothesis. You can tweak the Drake equation with extensions to cover civilisation spread, but any reasonable numbers in the parameters will result in large numbers of ET civilisations if you hold onto the "strong uniformitarian" position that the Earth and humanity are typical. It's only if you posit that the Earth and humanity are atypical, and that intelligent life is very unusual in the universe, that you can explain the observed absence of ET visitors on Earth. In terms of the Drake Equation you need to set one or more of the parameters as very low, the obvious candidates are:- proportion of planets that develop life (Drake had that as 2 per solar system - which would only make us typical if there was life on Mars, Titan etc as well)
- proportion of planets with life that develop intelligence (Drake had that as unity - once life starts it will inevitably result in intelligence. Though, if we're typical then that's inconsistent with the chances of life starting he'd estimated - though there's an outside chance that there is life on another planet in our solar system on only one has that progressed to intelligence - ie: if he wants to have 2 planets per system developing life he needs to have half of those going onto develop intelligence)
- proportion of intelligent civilisations that seek contact with other intelligences. IIRC Drake had that at 10% ... though again, if Earth is typical then that should be much higher.
- Lifetime of a communicating civilisation. Drake had this at 10,000 years. Which is significantly longer than the few decades we've been capable and (more or less) willing to attempt communication. A very short communcating time (ie <500 years) would significantly reduce the number of civilisations attempting communication at any one time
But, and here's the rub, if you set the proportion of planets that develop life or intelligence very small then you can only do that by rejecting the notion that Earth is typical.
--------------------
Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
sanityman
Shipmate
# 11598
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
But, and here's the rub, if you set the proportion of planets that develop life or intelligence very small then you can only do that by rejecting the notion that Earth is typical.
Indeed. SU is the hypothesis, "tested" by the thought experiment of the Drake equation, and the hypothesis is rejected. Modus tollens, and all that.
Martin: as you believe that Earth is unique, you must also reject SU. Why do you think everyone else should cleave to it so tightly?
- Chris.
--------------------
Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only the wind will listen - TS Eliot
Posts: 1453 | From: London, UK | Registered: Jun 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
Thanks again Alan.
If SU materialism IS operational then we're missing something that is exterminating life. Gamma-ray bursters. Huge, rare ones, sterilizing thousands of cubic parsecs at a time. As explored by Stephen Baxter in Space. They have to be rare as we just don't see them.
Where are their fossils ? They are imparsimonious AND weakly uniformitarian.
Chris
I can't possibly reject SU: as soon the Earth could support life, it did. And SU is parsimonious with that.
So what 'has' to give is materialism is the explanation of life, which is then pivotal to what comes before: matter and after: mind.
That breaks Occam's razor once vertically - with God - and it would seem that materialists would rather it shatter infinitely horizontally.
If life is not automatic, emergent, inevitable then neither, necessarily, are universes or consciousnesses. If life IS emergent then material is far more likely, more parsimoniously to be eternal and mind is similarly probably emergent from life.
If life were emergent ... where are they then ?!
And round we go.
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
I can't possibly reject SU: as soon the Earth could support life, it did. And SU is parsimonious with that.
With only one sample, we can't really say very much. Now, if we get to Mars and find conclusive evidence that life started there independently (even if now extinct), and even more so if we find life on Titan or elsewhere in the solar system, then the parameter in Drake about life emerging will be high - that effectively any near-Earth sized object in the habitable zone of a star would devlop life. On the other hand, on the evidence we might have (assuming evidence for life elsewhere in the solar system) there's also a reasonably high probability of that life being extinguished as planetary conditions change.
On the other hand, from our single sample, it takes a long time for life to move from very simple to more complex multi-cellular. And, a while to move from there to intelligence. That would suggest a low probability of life developing intelligence, even in a SU worldview.
--------------------
Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
With SU one is enough.
And the sample ain't one no more:
HD 209458b, provisionally nicknamed Osiris
HD 189733 b
HR 8799c
in 10 years.
That's planets with atmosphere's we've analyzed.
That will exponentially accelerate.
And by SU, 3 GY to the Cambrian is average. So there will be older, quicker evolution.
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
|
Posted
If you accept the SU conjecture, then a sample of one world may be enough. It means that you can estimate average values for the Drake parameters on the assumption that the Earth is (approximately) average. But, an average by itself tells you nothing about the distribution.
Take the time for multi-cellular life to appear. On Earth than was 3-3.5 billion years after the first life appeared. That average (if it is an average) tells us nothing about what the shortest time between first life and multi-cellular life is, except that it must be less than 3 billion years. Nor does it tell us how long life can remain at the single cell stage and never progress to multi-cellular forms, or indeed whether some planets will have life that never progresses to multi-cellular forms. And, that's without even considering whether planets might produce simple life forms, but all life is then made extinct relatively quickly (which, if there ever was life on Mars would appear to have been the case there).
You can make similar arguments about the time it takes life to emerge at all. On Earth a mere 0.5 billion years after planetary formation. How much faster could it have been? How much slower could it have been?
SU simply doesn't provide an answer to these questions. Indeed, the questions can never be answered without detailed study of other planetary systems (of the sort that would be impossible without teams of scientists visiting them - or ET visitors coming here and telling us about their home world and others they've visited). The biggest flaw with SU is that it starts with an assumption about a part of the answer (what the average is), and assumes that that is sufficient to proceed. Without a more complete answer we can't even assess whether SU is right and we are "average".
--------------------
Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
If you accept the SU conjecture, then a sample of one world may be enough. It means that you can estimate average values for the Drake parameters on the assumption that the Earth is (approximately) average.
But that's one hell of an assumption to make, especially as there's no evidence whatsoever to support it. There's no more reason to think we're average than there is to think we're top (or bottom) of the class.
I cannot accept Fermi's Paradox, because I just cannot get past the huge leap of faith that assuming that we're so average requires. And without that assumption, the whole premise falls to pieces.
--------------------
Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
I can't possibly reject SU: as soon the Earth could support life, it did. And SU is parsimonious with that.
One of the biggest problems with the Drake equation is that while we've got a pretty good value for one of the factors (rate of star formation) and are getting more data all the time on a second (fraction of stars that have planets), the remaining five factors are wild guesses. Even worse, they're wild guesses about biology usually made by astronomers or physicists with no special understanding of biology. Garbage in, garbage out.
For me the biggest misestimation is the probability of the formation of intelligent life, which seems to be quite low given the history of our own world. [insert joke here] There are a lot of adaptations that arise independently over and over again; certain camoflage patterns, wings, the similarities between a mammalian and cephalopodian eye, etc. In other words, these adaptations are both widely useful and arise fairly easily. Human-level intelligence does not seem to fall in this category. In the four billion year history of life on Earth (and the ~500 million year history of multicellular life), human-level intelligence has developed exactly once, in one genus of one particular lineage. This indicates that the development of that level of intelligence is both highly unusual and quite possibly contingent. It may also indicate that whatever the early contingent factors are for the development of intelligence, they're likely either evolutionarily neutral or slightly disadvantageous.
--------------------
Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Pre-cambrian
Shipmate
# 2055
|
Posted
Another enormous gap in the Drake equation but much more in the popular interpretation of it is the absence of any sense of time. Even if the figures put in were correct all they would indicate is the number of extraterrestrial civilisations that would exist in the Milky Way at some point during the whole of its existence. But the chances are that through an overwhelming proportion of the Milky Way's existence there would be none.
Just taking one of the equation's factors and applying it to Earth illustrates the point: the fraction of planets that develop life that then go one to develop intelligent life. Taking a generous interpretation of intelligence in human evolution perhaps we could place Earth in the intelligent life tally for the last 2 million years. This compares to the 4 billion minus 2 million that Earth was in the non-intelligent category. I.e. a c.99.95% history of unintelligence. It shifts the odds considerably against contemporaneity.
--------------------
"We cannot leave the appointment of Bishops to the Holy Ghost, because no one is confident that the Holy Ghost would understand what makes a good Church of England bishop."
Posts: 2314 | From: Croydon | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:
Another enormous gap in the Drake equation but much more in the popular interpretation of it is the absence of any sense of time. Even if the figures put in were correct all they would indicate is the number of extraterrestrial civilisations that would exist in the Milky Way at some point during the whole of its existence. But the chances are that through an overwhelming proportion of the Milky Way's existence there would be none.
Actually, the Drake equation produces an estimate (with enormous uncertainties) of the number of civilisations currently existing in the galaxy seeking to communicate. The equation has a time element. With his initial estimates, Drake concluded that at the moment there are 10 civilisations in the galaxy with the technology to send an interstellar message and the desire to do so. The equation would hold true at most times ... 500 million years ago, or in 500 million years there would still be 10 civilisations in the galaxy trying to communicate (just not necessarily the same ones).
--------------------
Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
Weak uniformitarianism: materialism's god of the gaps.
The drinks are on me at The Winged Boar the day an oxygen world is detected.
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
sanityman
Shipmate
# 11598
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
With SU one is enough.
And the sample ain't one no more:
HD 209458b, provisionally nicknamed Osiris
HD 189733 b
HR 8799c
in 10 years.
That's planets with atmosphere's we've analyzed.
Unsurprisingly, all these planets are bigger than Jupiter, larger things being easier to spot. This will result in a systematic bias against spotting Earth-like planets, unfortunately.- Osiris is a gas giant orbiting much closer than Mercury is to Sol, with a surface temperature estimated at 1000C.
- HD 189733 b is another hot Jovian
- HR 8799 c is another gas giant massing 7-13 times Jupiter.
Unless we can start seeing some roughly Earth-similar planets, it's a bit early to start taking bets. Apparently there are "around 5,000 [stars] that have been estimated to be located 100 ly of Earth, [identified] as the best nearby candidates for hosting complex Earth-type life" (source). Outside of 100 light years is probably too distant to have a chance of seeing anything. So our sample size is dropping alarmingly, and we haven't detected any Earth-type extrasolar planets yet. Keep the champagne on ice .
- Chris.
--------------------
Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only the wind will listen - TS Eliot
Posts: 1453 | From: London, UK | Registered: Jun 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
All true Chris.
I'm not optimistic at all that we'll ever spend the trillions necessary for a Moonbase to start massive engineering in space (maglev launching Lunar ore for smelting in space by photo-electrolysis, capturing anti-matter on the Lunar surface for zipping about the Solar System): no space elevator, no fleet of Daedalus probes, no asteroid capture, no O'Neill Halo, no terraforming Mars, Venus. Titan. The other gas giant moons. We won't even build vast photomultipliers, optical phased arrays.
Energy security and the clash of cultures is going to dissipate us. If eschatology has any teeth it will do more than that.
The need for energy may force us to industrialize near space. But not until we've paved the deserts with photovoltaics, turned all of the rain forests and wetlands to palm oil and sugar production. Built a quarter of a million windmills in Britain alone.
Unless, unlikelily, our present limited technological momentum does actually detect an oxygen world, which is currently + 100 years impossible, or we do get an ET signal from over a 1,000 LY (lased nuke) even with SU (20,000 concurrent civilizations) or even more unlikely a probe from an expanding civilization arrives. Or something in-between like A For Andromeda or Contact.
In which case we'd launch an Orion within a decade.
Whatever we need to end the doubt, tantalizingly, suspiciously, won't happen.
So you guys can carry on being materialists.
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
First, if we do take serious the connection between the fall and death, then we have unequivocal evidence that this is not the case: death is everywhere we look in the universe, and given finite light speed, death is there at all times. [...] Thus if there are non-fallen aliens out there, then either they are protected in localized bubbles of non-fallen universe, or St Paul has it wrong. I find neither convincing, so very likely the entire (visible-to-us) universe is fallen and all potential aliens in it hence as well.
I agree that the link between the fall (sin) and death needs to be taken seriously. But if we are assuming an actual historical fall (not necessarily a literalistic interpretation of Genesis, but at the very least some originally innocent first human or population of humans who by deliberate fault disobeyed God), then we also have to postulate from what we know from the sciences that there was death – of individuals, species, planets and stars, long before there was a putative ‘first man’ and certainly before there was a first human sin.
That’s not in the least fatal to a Christian world-view. It might be that Adam’s sin was so serious that it worked outwards and backwards in time and space to touch the whole of creation. It might be that those things were caused by an earlier angelic fall. It might be that mere physical death required for the formation of planets and the origin of species would not have involved conscious suffering and would not have been a moral evil. It might be that sentient life would have been miraculously preserved from its effects, or would have been so formed as to have accepted them as a necessary and joyful transition. I’m not saying that any particular one of those convinces me – my point is that there is a whole range of possible ways of reconciling a cosmos that appears broken and an unfallen rational creation within it.
And if we grant that, then there is no necessary objection to the Klingons continuing unfallen even though the humans did not. Both races start off guiltless in a universe which knows death. The defection of either from God’s service might taint the whole (and St Paul has it right) but the mere fact of a universe observably subjected to mortality is not a bar to there being innocent intelligences, because (if the Christian account is true) we know that there was at least one, once.
quote:
Second, we are not particularly desperate to interpret the parable [of the lost sheep] in this way, are we? It is not like our eyes are finally opened to this part of scripture because we consider it to refer to aliens. Rather, we know several standard interpretations for this parable, and we are just possibly adding yet another meaning. It is of course possible that Christ's parable had this additional layer of meaning, but it is neither necessary nor does it follow out of the text and the times. Whereas in fact our standard interpretations do fit easily into the historical and textual context.
Agree entirely. The point was that a ‘one fallen race’ model is not obviously contrary to the way God works, and not that this was what the parable means.
quote:
That does not work for me. It makes free will something external to the will of God. God has to wait and see what we or the Klingons do, and if it screws up His designs, too bad. Adam was responsible for his actions, since he in fact had free will. But if God had willed the universe to be free of rebels, then it would be free of rebels. There is no such thing as resisting the will of God - not because He's such a powerful being, but because God's will is existence itself. God willed that Adam freely willed his fall. That's mind-bending, but only because God is the Author of reality.
I think it mind-bending, and true as far as it goes, but I would add my conviction that Adam could have done otherwise. His fall was not scripted. God made him knowing (obviously) what he would freely do, but his fall was genuinely free.
And therefore I think that if God had it in mind to make the Klingons under the same conditions as he made us, they also had a genuinely free choice. If they were going to choose to rebel, God could have written them out of the script altogether, and never made them, but he could not have made them free, capable of falling, and scripted never to fall.
quote:
I would say that we are ultimately agreeing, because you are contradicting yourself...
I’m glad we have some common ground in the idea of a once-and-for-all Incarnation with cosmic redemptive effects.
I readily acknowledge that the idea of a universal salvation event does not sit very easily with the purely local effects of the first sin, and that the idea of one sentient race only being made, rebelling, and spoiling the whole is a better fit. That’s why I think that the existence of aliens would raise difficult questions. I don’t think it reaches the level of self-contradiction.
It would, in my view, be no more of a difficulty than the point you make above, that Adam both freely sinned, AND that he could do nothing outside God’s will. It seems to me that if we encountered other intelligences, and had to fit them into the story of a salvation which is the story of our race but which somehow involves all creation, there might well be things that we simply would not know. The fact that we would not know would not, for me, be enough to reject the truth of a faith that I had already accepted for good reasons.
quote:
Let me add that I see only one strong counter-argument to my thesis of no alien life from scripture: the plan of salvation is clearly ever expanding around a specific center. [...]
That said, I think there are no aliens. And that's because God is merciful. ... I think God made a point, a point important enough to spiritually kill a significant part of His angels, and He is not likely to let more persons burn in hell just because they cannot deal with the outrageous primacy given to humans in salvation - in particular not more corporeal persons, who cannot ever be expected to act with the clarity of incorporeal ones.
That God permits the damnation of any creature is a problem for any form of Christianity except universalism*. I don’t think that the answer can be that God thought the creation and exaltation of humanity worth a certain fixed number of souls in torment but no more – if in principle the existence of Hell at all is a price worth paying for whatever final state God has in mind, it seems to me that the (non-zero) number of persons in it would not make a difference of principle, only of degree.
(*Universalism has a completely different set of problems, of course.)
--------------------
"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
Printer-friendly view
