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BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone
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Subject: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: katlaughing Date: 21 Feb 01 - 11:06 AM From this site: THE Galaxy is teeming with billions of Earth-like planets, some capable of supporting life, according to a study. An analysis of light from hundreds of nearby stars suggests that at least half contain iron left after collisions with asteroids. And the astronomers behind the study believe that where there are asteroids with unstable orbits, there are rocky planets like Mars, Venus and Earth. Only a few years ago, astronomers were unable to say whether planetary systems like our solar system were rare or common. But studies of the "wobble" of stars, caused by the gravitational tugs of large planets, has provided evidence of 55 giant planets outside the solar system. Researchers also believe that they have seen such a giant planet passing in front of a star, reducing its brightness temporarily. The search for iron that might have been devoured by stars in collisions with metal-rich asteroids offers a third technique for spotting possible solar systems. Dr Norman Murray, of the University of Toronto, examined the light signature from 466 Sun-like stars and another 20 that were entering old age within 325 light years of the Sun. "What I found is evidence that there is terrestrial type material orbiting most of the stars in the solar neighbourhood," he told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in San Francisco. "The implication, if this result holds up, is that there are Earth-like bodies in orbit around most of the stars in the galaxy." Because stars naturally contain iron, just looking for evidence of the metal is not enough to prove the existence of rocky asteroids. Instead, he looked for clues that the iron had been added to the stars long after they were formed. A small star will devour iron deposited on its surface, mixing it in thoroughly with stellar gas. But the largest stars have more stable outer layers and will retain higher levels of accreted iron away from their interiors. Dr Murray found that iron concentrations jumped when stars reached a certain size, suggesting that their iron could have been deposited by rocky asteroids. Other means of adding iron to stars were unlikely or impossible. He also found that iron levels in the stars known to have orbiting planets were much higher than average. If rocky material was orbiting stars, then over time it would clump together to form rocky planets. And if asteroids were flying into the suns, it is likely that the gravitational pull of planets was sending them into their chaotic orbits. Dr Murray, who is keen to repeat the study, said: "If there are terrestrial bodies around these stars, then at least the probability that there is life that is similar to what we consider to be life has to be more likely. "If there weren't any terrestrial planets, there wouldn't be terrestrial-based life. So it is one more indication that life might be common in the galaxy, but we don't know that."
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: MMario Date: 21 Feb 01 - 11:22 AM Sometime soon we should be seeing "Barlow's Guide to the Ballads of Barsoom and other planets" |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Bill D Date: 21 Feb 01 - 11:37 AM anyone who knows enough math KNOWS that the odds are overwhelming that there are other civilizations out there....and that without some so far unknown technology, we won't be meeting them. 'Maybe' we'll get signals that confirm it sometime...... |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Kim C Date: 21 Feb 01 - 11:48 AM what I want to know is, do these "other beings" know how to brew a really good beer? |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Bert Date: 21 Feb 01 - 11:56 AM What's the betting that the first thing we hear from any of them is MUSIC. |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Mr Red Date: 21 Feb 01 - 12:01 PM But not as we know it - Jim. |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: BlueJay Date: 21 Feb 01 - 12:17 PM I don't remember where I heard this line, but: the best evidence for other intelligent life is their refusal to contact us. |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Grab Date: 21 Feb 01 - 12:22 PM Yeah Bill, but you can prove anything with maths if you know what answer you want to start with, especially when there's so little raw data available. You KNOW it emotionally, not intellectually. There's other ppl who know maths who say it ain't happening. So one group has to be wrong... By all means we should keep looking though, in case the group that's wrong is the one that says aliens don't exist! :-) Grab. |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: GUEST,Matt_R Date: 21 Feb 01 - 12:35 PM The static and the silence... |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: mousethief Date: 21 Feb 01 - 02:07 PM The fact that they have not yet tried to contact us proves they are very highly intelligent. |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: mousethief Date: 21 Feb 01 - 02:09 PM This reminds me of a cartoon I saw yesterday. The caption says "if planets are named for their characteristics, what would aliens call ours?" The picture shows two aliens in a space ship zipping past the earth. One says, "Well there's the planet Sitcom" and the other says, "Don't even slow down." |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Pete M Date: 21 Feb 01 - 02:18 PM Hi Grab, don't confuse maths with statistics. Statistically it is very very probable that there are a high number of other planets which sustain life. It is also very improbable that they are a) at roughly the same level of technology as us and therefore able to communicate with us AND b) close enough to communicate if they were able to. Pete M |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Lonesome EJ Date: 21 Feb 01 - 02:33 PM An old Saturday Night LIve episode featured Chevy Chase doing a weekend update segment on the Voyager space probe. "The Voyager contains a copy of the Bible, William Shakespeare's Hamlet, pictures of male and female human figures, and recordings of Beethoven and Chuck Berry. Late today, the first transmission was received from alien beings outside our solar system in the form of a brief message which said 'SEND MORE CHUCK BERRY'." |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Little Hawk Date: 21 Feb 01 - 02:44 PM Yup. If you seriously investigate enough available literature you will soon reach the conclusion that we already have been visited numerous times by intelligent extraterrestrial beings not too different from ourselves. If you just get to know enough people who are willing to talk about it, you will meet a fair number who've had some sort of encounter or sighting...I would bet one in 20 or 30 adults has, at some time. If your own idea of reality can't accept such a notion, you will avoid such literature and scoff at such individuals, which is why most of them are reticent on the subject. Everyone gravitates toward what they are inclined to already believe in. Reality is very democratic that way, isn't it? We all like to remain comfortable in our preconceptions. Once there were people on little islands here and there who thought that our world ended at the visible horizon and that there were no other poeple out there anywhere. They have since found otherwise. Our present situation is analagous to that, and the universe is the ocean in which this island, Earth, is floating. Most of our visitors probably have more important things to do than play "chicken" with the missile defense systems of a very paranoid little planet that still hasn't found a solution to its own internal conflicts, so they are probably just taking a brief look at us (for educational purposes?)and then moving on to more agreeable places on their intinerary. Why would they hang around here too long, when there's a whole universe out there in which to trade, communicate, and explore? We are not the center of it. - LH |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Bert Date: 21 Feb 01 - 02:54 PM Interesting thought LH. Maybe that accounts for "Rap". |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Irish sergeant Date: 21 Feb 01 - 02:58 PM I suspect that there is intellegent life out there. Just because we haven't found it doen't mean anything. Untill 98 years ago we didn't have a heavier than air craft capable of flight. If I were them, I'd avoid us like the plague mainly because we find out things that we're not necessarily capable of handling in a mature fashion. (Nuclear, chemical and biological Weapons for starters) Couple that fact withour seemingly inherant violent tendencies, why would they want to contact us? I do hope, they like music and have some realy paralizing great beer too. Kindest reguards, Neil |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Bert Date: 21 Feb 01 - 03:02 PM Actually we were visited and enslaved by an alien race many thousands of years ago. We still provide for them and cater to their every whim. They have us so well trained that, to this day, we actually LOVE our masters - the cats. |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: katlaughing Date: 21 Feb 01 - 03:15 PM It is interesting to note that most who've posted seem to think only in negative terms as far as our own planet and what we may have to offer, as opposed to other planets which most seem to believe would be superior. In the interest of balance, don't any of you think we may have something to offer to another planet which may not be as far along as we are? Or that superior planets may see enough redeeemable qualities in us to want to help? Just wondering.... kat |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Bert Date: 21 Feb 01 - 03:19 PM Seriously kat, I would think that other intelligent lifeforms would be quite likely to evolve with very similar characteristics to ours. I think our aggressiveness is part of why we survived ourselves. |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Penny S. Date: 21 Feb 01 - 03:19 PM bert, you have betrayed the PLAN. Penny |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Bert Date: 21 Feb 01 - 03:24 PM I know, Penny. Actually MY CAT did it (let the cat out of the bag so to speak). If, when playing with him, you pull his ears back and down flat (gently of course) it becomes very obvious that he is closely related to those aliens they captured at Roswell. |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Little Hawk Date: 21 Feb 01 - 03:31 PM Bert - you are in big trouble now. Kat - I am sure that there are many planets far more primitive than this one, and that they could benefit from us in various ways...if you could keep our greed for money and resources out of the equation. It's just that the ones who can actually make it here are probably more advanced socially than we are. Let's hope so, or they will take this place over in short order, and not to our benefit! I do think that some of the visitors see many valuable qualities in Earth people, and consider us as younger and less experienced siblings, in a sense. We do have extraordinary qualities of greatness in almost every way, and that is shown by our many accomplishments. Thanks for suggesting the alternative viewpoint. - LH |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Penny S. Date: 21 Feb 01 - 03:32 PM One thing people might like to chase up are the Drake equations, which work out the probabilities of habitable planets out there. Much of them are figures pulled out of empty space, though. Important things to bear in mind are the habitable zone around each star, and the necessity of a large Moon as a co-orbitable, and that's only two. Our habitable zone is very narrow, and, worse, is moving (help, I can't remember whether it's going out or in!), so that in time, Earth will fall outside it, and the temperature range will not be able to support our life. Mars and Venus are nowhere near it. If you extend the criteria to allow bacteria as what places are habitable for, with nothing else, there are more possibilities, but if you want a fully operational biosphere, you need rather more in the plant line, and what we have can be very fussy about light and CO2 levels. A number of arguments have been raised about the Moon, such as tides enabling movement from sea to land, and the effect on moderating the axial tilt. Since it seems that the Moon is, in one way or another, a captured object (I simplify severely), the odds on having a planet, in the habitable zone, with a large co-orbital body are much steeper than those for iron rich stars having terrestrial planets. As for the aliens out there - if they can get here, it behoves us to keep very quiet indeed. Or broadcast Morris dancing and bodhran music.do you want to attract the Conquistadors? Penny |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: MMario Date: 21 Feb 01 - 03:32 PM Have read several stories in which marsupials are discovered to be the vestiges of a failed extraterrestrial colonization attempt. and an excellent one about lemmings and a group mind. |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: hesperis Date: 21 Feb 01 - 03:33 PM lies, damned lies, and statistics. |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Penny S. Date: 21 Feb 01 - 03:34 PM And do we really want to encourage the sort of behaviour those reported visitors have shown? Penny |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Hawker Date: 21 Feb 01 - 03:57 PM Kat/Katlaughing, I agree with your idea, it would be nice to think that we are a superior race to the aliens and that we may have something to offer them, but as mankind has shown looking at the third world situation, we have not as yet learned how to help ourselves or our own... perhaps the aliens see us as foolish and unapproachable! I do believe that there is something out there, I really do think that they have made contact - or tried....... But I also believe in Faeries and ghosts! or at least the possibility of there being such things! I look forward to acknowledged contact, not secretive cover-ups! Lucy Nanu Nanu - LOL |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 21 Feb 01 - 04:40 PM I tend to assume we're some kind of Site of Special Scientific Interest, with special restrictions on anyone messing up our odd little ecology and our quaint culture.
Let's just hope there isn't some creep like Bush sneaking into power out there, with an agenda that includes getting rid of all those wimpish liberal restrictions, and letting in the extraterrestrial equivalent of the oil-drilling rigs. |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Bert Date: 21 Feb 01 - 04:44 PM If the aliens were to somehow sneak in here - first they would hire an actor to be president, and when that didn't work they'd try rigging the election. |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Hawker Date: 21 Feb 01 - 04:59 PM Isn't that what just happened ....... or am I an english idiot too slow on the uptake! |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: MMario Date: 21 Feb 01 - 05:04 PM no - sillies - the first thing that aliens would do is covertly breed us to increase body size and weight. Then - soylent green So until statistics show that height is increasing over the generations, we have nothing to worry about.
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Penny S. Date: 21 Feb 01 - 05:07 PM For those with an interest in the science, try New Scientist 27th January, Red, Willing and Able, by Ken Crossley, and Astronomy, March, with an article about planet hunting. Both these concern planets around red dwarfs. If you allow the existence of the other folk, maybe the alien sightings are them, pulling our legs! The reported behaviour is very similar. Penny |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 21 Feb 01 - 05:12 PM "So until statistics show that height is increasing over the generations, we have nothing to worry about."
What about bulk?
And of course they'd want to keep us from paying too m uch attention to that - and I seem to remember a thread here a few months about relating to this very issue in relation to the population of the planet's most powerful poltical entity, and it caused one hell of a ruction...I think maybe they're here already. |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Penny S. Date: 21 Feb 01 - 05:24 PM New Scientist a while back had an article that posited that the current increase in individual body weight could perhaps be attributed to a virus - and we could catch it from the thin, not the fat, since they were no longer infectious with it... Be afraid, be very afraid. And find a copy of the last Quatermass. Penny |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: hesperis Date: 21 Feb 01 - 05:39 PM A virus!!! LOL! What about the preponderence of meat in the modern "diet"? And the sedentary lifestyle? A virus?!! ROTFLOL!!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Bert Date: 21 Feb 01 - 05:41 PM Quatermass, what a great program. But you're giving away your age there Penny. |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Bill D Date: 21 Feb 01 - 07:54 PM "If you seriously investigate enough available literature you will soon reach the conclusion that we already have been visited numerous times by intelligent extraterrestrial beings not too different from ourselves..... " funny...I have read accounts of 'witnesses', watched programs on the Roswell incident, studied reports of crop circles, looked at learned discussions of physics, seen purported photographs and videos...and I still haven't reached the conclusion that aliens are/have been among us! But I guess I just haven't investigated 'enough' yet, hmmm?....Or maybe I am just stubborn, and have the deluded idea that 'proof' involves more than lots of curious, unexplained happenings. I do know this about myself..I do not REQUIRE final answers--about religion, aliens, elves, or psychic phenomena. I am content to shrug and say 'isn't that interesting?' If little green men land on my street in a saucer-shaped ship and zap MY begonias with a death ray, or I find myself 'hearing' YOUR thoughts, or a voice like thunder booms from the clouds and tells me to change my behavior....or tiny folks with pointed shoes start dancing in the moonlight in MY garden...(and I haven't been drinking...)...then I might say "hmmmmm... wild!" I do envy those who can 'believe' with lesser evidence than I require, their lives have a lot more...ummmm..pizzazz... than mine, I guess. Ah well..... |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: catspaw49 Date: 21 Feb 01 - 09:17 PM Everytime this subject comes up.................. That the odds are good for life to exist at thousands and thousands of places in the universe are good. It is also exteremely unlikely that their life started as ours did with a four protein DNA chain of exactly the same amino acids. It may well be that any life form we encounter (or have encountered, or has encountered us) is NOT recognizable to us nor we to them. It may also be that thousands of these "life forms" reached the peak of their "civilization" before the earth even cooled or perhaps during the ice age and are now long gone. In other places, it may be billions of years before a life form develops enough to make contact....all this providing they even want to of course. So what are the odds of having another life form visit us at this moment in time?????? Some other very advanced life form may never see a need to visit anywhere or to explore space at all. They are not necessarily like us at all are they? I mean really.......What ARE the odds? I can't figure them, but I'll check with the Easter Bunny in a few weeks and compare what he says with the Tooth Fairy. Sorry gang, but I'm with Bill on the "Wonderful World of Little Green Wankers"..........I'll be the guy sayin', "Far out man." Spaw
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Bill D Date: 21 Feb 01 - 09:28 PM catspaw...lets you & me get together and form a "Smart-alec Skeptics" cult, and print us up some brochures and go 'round knocking on doors and having tent meetings to de-bunk silliness. We could have songs and quote erudite works of Philosophy and tell jokes....and...well, I was gonna say 'charge admission', but I s'pose not... ....I can dream, can't I? |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Amos Date: 21 Feb 01 - 09:38 PM Bear in mind that all these projections of occupied spatial dimples similar to our own are predicated more or less on a fairly Newtonian and box-like shape. This is if course a primitive interpretation that is normal to those whose primary perceptions are channeled through and attributed to bodies. It accounts for the strange dichotomistic behaviour of the kinds of Aliens documented by Whitley Streiber, the NY writer who penned that series about visitiations in the mid-to-late-Eighties. The anecdotal evidence was very persuasive and the collections of incidents was remarkavle; and he even mustered up some telling body scars to support his scenario of unwanted medical examinations. But he could not account for the discrepancy in physical sightings and evidence, which was of a much lower count than the experiential data being accepted by individuals from all over who, apparently, really had a story to tell. If you shift to the kind of space time described by Hawking, then a different set of possibilities emerges. If dimensionality is as complex as quantum physics implies, with multiple parallel tracks of possibility unfurling like a grapevine branching threough time, and gaps and wormholes where shortcuts between lightyears can exist, and spacetime bundles of probability being the most solid version of reality we can prove, why then there is a possibility that we are being contacted by beings from other, inhabited planets. Just not in the same slice of continuum. And if that is possible, it would at least explain why all those very very real experiences produced no photographs or exposure-to-vacuum problems during levitation into mother ships and so forth; the boundaries being transgressed were of a different kind and between a different set of realms altogether. Maybe the doorways between such universes are very different than the heavy-mass gateways that seem to be wormholes and black holes. Maybe they can flicker into and out of the spaces of _perceptual_ reality, the zone between our physical inputs and our recognition of those inputs, where god-only-knows what can happen. Maybe a lot of things. But we won't sort this sheaf of hypthoses out using telescopes or mass sprectometers or gamma counters. In fact, we probably won't ever sort this sheaf of speculations out because they are WAY too improbable to think about without....going....half.....maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaadddd. :>) So I guess those secrets are safe for a few more millenia, anyway. |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Little Hawk Date: 21 Feb 01 - 10:23 PM Bill - Yup, that's it. You're stubborn. :-) Spaw - What were the odds of strange, pale, bearded men coming to Tahiti in giant wooden ships with trees growing out of their decks and enormous square sails? Ask any Tahitian of the time... A ZILLION TO ONE. Never happen. Case closed, right, Spaw? What if you had a really good friend, an honest and clear-headed man, and he swore up and down he'd seen 'em. Then what? Penny - Some of them have done some rather unpleasant things, all right. Most have not. They seem to run the gamut, although none have invaded yet, fortunately. And I'm not saying a word here about cats. Not a peep. :-) - LH |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: catspaw49 Date: 21 Feb 01 - 11:27 PM Doesn't wash Hawk........and if I knew the person you describe, I wouldn't argue, just say, "Oh really....Tell me about it." I would then try to supply appropriate noises of startled amazement. This one I have to see for myself. There are way too many variables involved to have the average alien, as generally described, show up on my doorstep. I would consider it far more likely that a life form has already visited and we had no idea what it was and were unable to recognize it as a life form. It may or may not have recognized us. Kinda' like flattop...............Anyway, go commune with Major Tom about it all and see what he thinks.(:<)) Spaw |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Amos Date: 21 Feb 01 - 11:40 PM That's what I like about Spaw, Hawk -- he's tough minded, a realist first and last; he doesn't let any old wind blow him hither and yon. He's grounded and real and somehow still stays enthusiastic about the straight-8 facts of existence on a real plane that can be counted up. WHich explains why he goes around blowing up possums' buttholes, and recruiting inmates for an imaginary insane asylum -- and getting ANSWERS!!!! :>) Regards, A |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: MarkS Date: 21 Feb 01 - 11:50 PM Planets around red dwarfs? Why would New Scientist worry about short communists? |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Amos Date: 22 Feb 01 - 12:11 AM Cuz they're starting all these plots about eee-volUSHun, is why!! Undermin' the 'Merican way o' life!!! I'd worry too, if I could do all the numbers them science fellers do! A |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Crazy Eddie Date: 22 Feb 01 - 12:24 AM Little Hawk, You say in a post above, << Kat - I am sure that there are many planets far more primitive than this one, and that they could benefit from us in various ways...if you could keep our greed for money and resources out of the equation >> Well, it'd be nice to think so, but given our previous history whenever one of our societies has met a more primative one, I think it would be a damn poor look-out for the aliens! Let's see now, enslavement, dispossession, or genocide.....or maybe a little of each? Of course they might get lucky and survive, but with their culture improved; maybe Coke, McDonalds and canned music would be GOOD for them. cynical Eddie |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: katlaughing Date: 22 Feb 01 - 01:10 AM Okay how about this then? When the ahem rapture happens and only the good people ascend to heaven, the rest of us will be here and be good for the planet and the aliens, howzzat? **BG**(No offense intended!) To everyone: I know I've recommended them before, but once again, and totally appropriate for this thread, please get your hands on two books, Waiting for the Galatic Bus and its sequel The Snake Oil Wars by Parke Godwin and get ready for a hilarious look at this subject. In the first book two brothers from a distant planet are cruising after graduation, running around from planet to planet with their friends, drinking and carousing. They land on primitive earth. The brothers pass out. Their friends think it would be funny to leave them for a while and come back, only problem is they can't remember where they left them because they were so drunk. Brothers wake up. One challenges the other to mess with the planet, make something of the primitive life, while the challenger has a good time. They help evolution along and eventually become known as God and Satan. It is brilliantly funny and a quick read. The second book finds them back at it, at a time not unlike our own. Quite a followup and every bit as entertaining as the first. They are out of print, but I am sure you could find copies at www.bibliofind or www.bookfinder or in your local library. kat
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Barbara Date: 22 Feb 01 - 01:55 AM Sorry, gang, I couldn't resist. This has been around on the net for a while:
Imagine if you will... the leader of the fifth invader force speaking to the commander in chief [in regards to the planet Earth]...
"They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"Meat. They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"There's no doubt about it. We picked several from ifferent parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way through. They're ompletely meat."
"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars."
"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."
"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."
"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell ou. Meat made the machines."
"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."
"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in the sector and they're made out of meat." "Maybe they're like the Orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage."
"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the Weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside."
"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads like the Weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through."
"No brain?"
"Oh, there is a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat!"
"So... what does the thinking?"
"You're not understanding, are you? The brain does the thinking. The meat."
"Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"
"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?" "Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."
"Finally, Yes. They are indeed made out of meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."
"So what does the meat have in mind?"
"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the universe, contact other sentients, swap ideas and information. The usual."
"We're supposed to talk to meat?"
"That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio. 'Hello. Anyone out there? Anyone home?' That sort of thing."
"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"
"Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."
"I thought you just told me they used radio."
"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."
"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?"
"Officially or unofficially?"
"Both."
"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome, and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in the quadrant, without prejudice, fear, or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing."
"I was hoping you would say that."
"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?"
"I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say?" `Hello, meat. How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?"
"Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact."
"That's it."
"Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you have probed? You're sure they won't remember?"
"They'll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we're just a dream to them."
"A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat's dream."
"And we can mark this sector unoccupied."
"Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?"
"Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotations ago, wants to be friendly again." "They always come around."
"And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the universe would be if one were all alone."
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Bill D Date: 22 Feb 01 - 11:47 AM "Oh, it's neat to greet some meat from the Milky Way flood"....don't scan too, well, hmmm? |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: catspaw49 Date: 22 Feb 01 - 11:57 AM Just delete the "Oh" and substitute "It's so" and it does pretty well Bill..........
Sun goes down, Moon comes out Spaw |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Wolfgang Date: 22 Feb 01 - 12:24 PM An interesting topic open to much speculation (sometimes it seems that topics not open to much speculation are less interesting). Basically, there is one single formula for calculating the probability of extraterrestrial life. You take the estimated number of stars and multiply it (assuming statistical independence between the many probabilities involved) with (among others) the probability that planets exist for a star the probability that planet orbits are stable for a very long time the probability that the orbits are at a safe but warm distance the probability that... That's the idea in a nutshell. Now how do we know these figures? Actually, we don't, we make extremely rough guesses. These guesses don't differ just by 10% or so, they often differ by several powers of ten. Now what happens if you make the final calculation with one set of guesses and then with another set of guesses? You come to completely differing results. I've read accounts from (a) so unlikely to have happened even once that life on earth is a proof for intelligent design to (b) the universe must be full of planets with life. It is nice to know that for one of these probabilities there is now a better base for a good guess, but still the figures in the final calculation differ by several powers of ten depending upon the assumptions. As Grab has said, it is at this moment a question of emotion, not of intellect, what you believe. Wolfgang
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Little Hawk Date: 22 Feb 01 - 03:10 PM Hey, Wolfgang! I figured this thread would bring you "out of hiding", to use an expression. How's it going? - Spaw - I asked Major Tom. He swears that there are all kinds of aliens out there, but that none of them are green. Some are little, but none of them are green for some reason. Weird, ain't it? What good is a universe without little green men, anyway? As for red dwarfs...well, flattop would fit that description if he was a Communist, I guess...but he's not. Pity. Barbara - You get an A+++ for that wonderful story! Kat - Whaddya mean when the "good" people go to heaven? We're all good. Some of us just have a hard time showing it, that's all. That's what keeps the game in motion. Without them "bad guys" how would you know what "good" was? - LH (doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo....) |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: katlaughing Date: 22 Feb 01 - 03:15 PM LH, I was being sarcastic about those fundamentalists who imply they are the only "good" people who will go up in what they believe in and call the "Rapture." Again, no offense intended toward anyone reading this. |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: catspaw49 Date: 22 Feb 01 - 04:20 PM What a cheer, the Hawkster do! He grabbed Major Tom and off they flew. They're like Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd Just lookin' for some more meat in the Milky Way flood. Thanks Bill, you're an inspiration! Spaw |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: mousethief Date: 22 Feb 01 - 04:37 PM kat, you are such a sweetie, how can we take offense? Not that I believe in the "rapture" -- a relatively recent and quite bizarre pseudotheological novelty. But there you go. The "meat" thing is by sci-fi author Terry Bisson, is copyrighted, was originally worded slightly differently than the edition given above, and can be found at this site: http://www.terrybisson.com/meatplay.html A wonderful dialogue it is, too! Thanks for bringing it to us, Barbara; I'd never seen it before!
-Alex |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Bill D Date: 22 Feb 01 - 05:49 PM cartoon..(I 'may' still have it somewhere)..view from inside a flying saucer over the shoulders of two grinning little aliens with preditory expressions... as they gaze thru the window at Earth...one says, "..yes, but are WE meek enough to inherit it?" |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Penny S. Date: 22 Feb 01 - 06:10 PM That was the recent, not as good as the old (we didn't have a TV then, I had to rely on retold in the playground versions), Quatermass, in which people felt themselves called to ancient (and not so ancient) ring like structures, whence they were beamed up by aliens, and the detritus suggested that they were being beamed up as recovered meat. Can't remember the denouement.... Penny |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Troll Date: 22 Feb 01 - 09:10 PM If we are being visited and taken aboard alien ships, why do they keep taking samples etc. It would seem to me that any race technologically advanced enough to conquer interstellar space would be able to get just about all the data they needed from a few individuals. Yet, according to the believers, they keep snatching people, subjecting them to strange tests, and letting them go. It does not make sense. Moreover, anyone can claim that they were snatched and there is absolutely no way to test their claim for truth or falsity. I will recommend two books, "Voodoo Science" and "Weird Science". Both address the question of alien visitors but from slightly different viewpoints. Both are good reads. troll |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Little Hawk Date: 22 Feb 01 - 09:14 PM Yeah, I know, Kat, I was just pretending to take it seriously. I'm known for my dry sense of humour around here. How about instead of the rapture it was the "rupture"? The Earth suddenly rips open at the equator or some other handy location, and swallows all the baddies, along with all the pollution and McDonalds franchises, then closes up again, leaving all the believers in an Earthly paradise... Now there's a compelling idea. We oughta tell the PTL Club or somebody like that... - LH |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: catspaw49 Date: 22 Feb 01 - 09:19 PM That already happened Hawk and the resulting scar they call Mississippi. I think its due again.......... Spaw |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Grab Date: 23 Feb 01 - 10:25 AM Wolfgang, an addendum to your (accurate) description of the problem. There's another dimension to the equation - time. How long can a species live for? How long does it take to develop a technological civilisation? How long does a planet even remain habitable? Or a solar system or galaxy, even? Given that, we can work out the probability that two technological civilisations are going to occur roughly at the same time, and close enough together that they can communicate - otherwise, all we'll ever find on other planets is fossils (or maybe all the aliens wil find will be our fossils). The problem for these equations is that even taking the most wildly optimistic numbers anyone can suggest (anyone who's expert in the appropriate field, I should say, not a wide-eyed amateur like von Daeniken), the odds still come out pretty damn small that we're going to meet an alien. Another aside - following "Close Encounters", alien sightings have apparently pretty much standardised on what they look like. Go figure. Grab. |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: catspaw49 Date: 23 Feb 01 - 10:38 AM Grab, if you'll go back and read what I said, I think you'll find those are exactly the points I was making and I couldn't agree more. Add in that other life forms do not need to be carbon based and you have another factor.....Will we recognize each other as life? Spaw |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Wolfgang Date: 23 Feb 01 - 10:45 AM I agree. Wolfgang |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Little Hawk Date: 23 Feb 01 - 10:52 AM Having already seen an alien vehicle, why would one fool around with a bunch of hypothetical probability equations? Of course, you haven't seen one, so go ahead and compose all the equations you want, if it makes you feel better. It could be quite fascinating, I suppose... - LH
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: GUEST,Bun Date: 23 Feb 01 - 10:52 AM http://www.anomalous-images.com/astroufo.html
Sorry - unable to to the linky thing, this site is quite good - it gives the perspective of those who have been in a better position than most to see if we are alone |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: hesperis Date: 23 Feb 01 - 11:07 AM http://www.anomalous-images.com/astroufo.html |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Bert Date: 23 Feb 01 - 12:04 PM Oops! Sorry Penny me luv. I didn't know there was a new Quatermass. My vision of your youth and beauty has been fully restored. As an engineer I have always enjoyed speculation about visitations from aliens. In the Von Daniken era I read what I could find. At first with great interest, which rapidly turned to disappointment as there was no scrap of 'evidence' of any visitation. Von Daniken had several great theories which completely broke down due to the lack of any evidence. Where's the hardware? Where are the nuts and bolts and rivets that would have held their devices together? Even assuming that and advanced technology may have overcome their reliance on the simple rivet, there would still be the 'bones' of their technology to be found. It would be found in the strong parts of the structure or containers of their devices. The chassis, or mother boards or corners of the cases or enclosures. Where are the food conatiners which they most likey would leave behind. There's nothing ever been found that could be remotely ascribed to be of alien origin. Bert. |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Bert Date: 23 Feb 01 - 12:06 PM Oops! Sorry Penny me luv. I didn't know there was a new Quatermass. My vision of your youth and beauty has been fully restored. As an engineer I have always enjoyed speculation about visitations from aliens. In the Von Daniken era I read what I could find. At first with great interest, which rapidly turned to disappointment as there was no scrap of 'evidence' of any visitation. Von Daniken had several great theories which completely broke down due to the lack of any evidence. Where's the hardware? Where are the nuts and bolts and rivets that would have held their devices together? Even assuming that and advanced technology may have overcome their reliance on the simple rivet, there would still be the 'bones' of their technology to be found. It would be found in the strong parts of the structure or containers of their devices. The chassis, or mother boards or corners of the cases or enclosures. Where are the food conatiners which they most likey would leave behind. There's nothing ever been found that could be remotely ascribed to be of alien origin. Bert. |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Skeptic Date: 23 Feb 01 - 12:24 PM Little Hawk, Seeing something that's described as being a UFO doesn't imply that whatever was seen was a UFO. My father described seeing a UFO when he was in his teens (circa 1930). I never doubted his sincerity, just his interpretation.
Amos, Using the idea of multiple continuums to explain some of the anomalies that come up when dealing with alien abductions and ufo's is a new one. I know Michael Crichton dealt with a similar idea in Timeline. It's currently untestable and, if I understand it correctly, the experience, evidence and so on would only exist in another continuum but never this one? Thus there would be a continuum where the evidence might exist, we just don't happen to be in one? I understood that Hawking's ideas were put forth as a theory to more fully explain some quantum phenomena, especially wormholes which seem to imply that time travel should be possible. The counter argument is that the multi-continuum (as opposed to multi-dimensional - which seems like splitting hairs but apparently isn't) model is wrong because relativity can't be violated and as the wormhole approaches the point of allowing time-travel, it self-extinguishes.
Have you come across anything by Hawking (or any of the others) on the Einstein-Podalsky-Rosen Paradox. I read a couple of years back that the Swiss (CERN maybe) had demonstrated that the paradox does occur and came across a brief article on some of the competing theories, including resurrecting the old concept of ether , proposing that since everything is just quantum wave interference patterns and everything we "know" really is illusion to questioning the data. Demonstrating that a quantum particle can act in apparent violation of Relativity would seem to validate the Hawking supporters and at least imply that maybe Relativity is a limited phenomena. And mean that one of the big obstacles to alien visitations might not exist.
On the other hand:
And if that is possible, it would at least explain why all those very very real experiences produced no photographs or exposure-to-vacuum problems during levitation into mother ships and so forth; the boundaries being transgressed were of a different kind and between a different set of realms altogether
All I can say about the site is that it was interesting.
While the descriptions of the experiences are real, the explanations offered to explain them are somewhat fantastic. Most of the abduction experiences replicate experiences common to some fairly well documented psychological phenomena such as hypnogogic or hypnopompic hallucinations.
Hesperis,
The pictures at the link would seem to run counter to the idea multi-continuum idea as they consist of physical evidence (of a sort) An alternate view of UFO reports can be found at: Blicky for Klass Files
Regards
John |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Bill D Date: 23 Feb 01 - 12:25 PM ah, Bert...but we have HUNDREDS of blurry pictures and sworn statements by fine, honest people...what more could you ask for? Maybe they are neat, recycling aliens who don't LEAVE old food containers and lost rivets! ;>) |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: catspaw49 Date: 23 Feb 01 - 12:36 PM If the aliens land, they aren't brash. They don't make a mess and they pickup the trash. They're clean green guys, don't leave no crud While visitin' the meat in the Milky Way Flood. Working into a real song here......... Spaw |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Amos Date: 23 Feb 01 - 01:55 PM Spaw: You have a WEINER! ...oh, I'm sorry. I meant to type: you have a WINNER!! I suggest "Patriot Games" as a tune. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Barbara Date: 23 Feb 01 - 02:13 PM Uhm, I think he was working on "Mississippi Mud" as a tune base, Amos... Thanks Alex, for the author. It just showed up in my email one day from a friend. Blessings, Barbara |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: catspaw49 Date: 23 Feb 01 - 02:56 PM Thanks Amos, and Barbara is right, "Mississippi Mud" thanks to Bill's end line......At least I assume that's what he was using. Spaw |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Little Hawk Date: 23 Feb 01 - 05:36 PM Amos - Spaw does have a weiner, albeit a rather over-publicized one...which is his own fault. Some go so far as to say that he is a weiner. I frankly doubt that that is so, and I will not give such a theory credence unless it is accompanied by irrefutable physical evidence of an empirical sort, such evidence having been provided and documented under controlled laboratory conditions, by accredited scientists in the USA or one of its allies, since others cannot be trusted. So there. - LH |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Rollo Date: 23 Feb 01 - 06:22 PM Once I read some scientists wanted to know which degree of the earth axis would be optimum for a devellopment of live like we know it. If I remember right, our earth axis has a degree of 21.5°, and the result was a degree between 20° and 22°! Har har har! For sure it had to be, because life as we know it is optimized perfectly for the conditions of our planet, which means a very precise distance to the sun, a moon causing tidal waves, a magnetic field to keep of cosmic radiation, and so on... But think about the extreme conditions microbes survive on this our own planet, while most species live only in certain mid range areas of the biosphere. Imagine a planet where are nearly, but not exactly similar conditions like on earth. Imagine a planet where there is an atmosphere, shelter against overmwhelming radiation from space and sun, enough chemical activity to rise the probability of some kind of self producing protein evolving... But the sun is six times bigger than ours and the planet is part of a sub-system in a triple star system. why not??? Who looks for another earth will have to find another one. The fact mars is nearly, but not exactly earthlike, and it's obviously sterile, doesn't count. there doesn't have to evolve life on every single planet that might be able to.
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Rollo Date: 23 Feb 01 - 06:44 PM and here is one for you bunch of realists! *friendly hug* The Unicorn in the Garden by James Thurber Once upon a sunny morning a man who sat in a breakfast nook looked up from his scrambled eggs to see a white unicorn with a gold horn quietly cropping the roses in the garden. The man went up to the bedroom where his wife was still asleep and woke her. "There is a unicorn in the garden," he said. "Eating roses." She opened an unfriendly eye and looked at him. "The unicorn is a mythical beast," she said and turned her back on him. Tha man walked slowly downstairs and out into the garden. The unicorn was still there, he was now browsing among the tulips. "Here, unicorn," said the man, and he pulled out a lilly and gave it to him. The unicorn ate it gravely. With a high heart, because there was a unicorn in his garden, the man went upstairs and roused his wife again. "The unicorn," he said, "ate a lilly." His wife sat up and looked at him, coldly. "You are a booby," she said, "and I'm going to put you in the booby-hatch." The man, who had never liked the words "booby" and "booby-hatch", and who liked them even less on a shiny morning when there was a unicorn in the garden, thought for a moment. "We'll see about that," he said. he walked over to the door. "He has a golden horn in the middle of his forehead," he told her. Then he went back to the garden to watch the unicorn, but the unicorn had gone away. the man sat down among the roses, and went to sleep. As soon the husband had gone out of the house, the wife got up and dressed as fast as she could. She was very excited and there was a gloat in her eye. She telephoned the police and she telephoned a psychatrist; she told them to hurry to her house and briong a straight-jacket. When the police and the psychatrist arrived they sat down in chairs and looked at her, with great interest. "My husband," she said, "saw a unicorn this morning." The police looked at the psychatrist and the psychatrist looked at the police. "He told me it ate a lily," she said. The psychatrist looked at the police and the police looked at the psychatrist. "He told me it had a golden horn in the middle of its forehead," she said. At a solemn signal from the psychatrist, the police leaped from their chair and seized the wife. They had a hard time subduing her, for she put up a terrific struggle, but they finally subdued her. Just as they got her into the straight-jacket, the husband came back into the house. "Did you tell your wife you saw a unicorn?" asked the police. "Of course not," said the husband. "The unicorn is a mythical beast." "That'S all I wanted to know," said the psychatrist. "Take her away. I'm sorrý, sir, but your wife is as crazy as a jay bird." So they took her away, cursing and screaming, and shut her up in an institution. The husband lived happily ever after. Moral: Don't count your boobies until they are hatched.
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Little Hawk Date: 23 Feb 01 - 06:50 PM Now that's poetic justice if ever I heard of it... - LH |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: catspaw49 Date: 23 Feb 01 - 06:53 PM Yeah....Always loved that one.......Thurber was pretty wonderful (and a hometown boy to boot). Spaw |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Bill D Date: 23 Feb 01 - 07:04 PM well, my first little ditty was to "Mississippi Mud"...but if you wanna write a song,spaw...you can use any durn tune YOU want...(Wolfgang is right..."Patriot's Game" does come close...) |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: catspaw49 Date: 23 Feb 01 - 07:10 PM I've been using MM......but who cares anyway? Its a joke! Spaw |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Little Hawk Date: 23 Feb 01 - 07:13 PM Actually, I used to think I was alone, until the gorilla showed up. He used to hang around outside and tap on the windows at night. It was pretty spooky. Finally I let him in one day, and I haven't been able to get rid of him since. It's not too bad, except that he eats all the fruit, and hogs the couch. He seldom showers, so the water bill has hardly changed. All in all, though, I think I preferred being alone on the whole. (sigh!) The upside is, when telemarketers call I refer them to the gorilla...he seems to enjoy "talking" to them. - LH |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Little Hawk Date: 24 Feb 01 - 12:00 AM Actually, it's a baboon. Sorry about that. I got carried away. His name is Gideon. - LH |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Amos Date: 24 Feb 01 - 12:39 AM Well, look on the bright side. At least you're not alone! SKeptic: The anomaly I couldn't quite shake in Streiber's stuff was the correlation in pattern between independent case histories who had had no contact with each other, no desire to share their story, and in many instances had suppressed the stories because they knew they'd be booby-hatched if they told them. The commonalities under these circumstances look like they must be attributable to (a) actual experience (b) some common implanted story, such as a long-forgotten scifi movie or some such (c) some weird brand of telepathic plot dumping or (d) some kind of Jungian archetype script. 'Course they could have been running a Westerrn Union plot party, but I kinda doubt it! :>)
Leak-through, or break-through, whether by design or accident, from a parallel continuum, could explain it, and it is a nice fanciful notion, could answer all kinds of odd questions (not sure how you could use it predictively) but I have to say it is purdy hyperthetical, wouldn't you agree? Regards, A |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Skeptic Date: 24 Feb 01 - 09:42 PM Little Hawk, I think Gideon has been logging on as you. I can tell cause your posts suddenly start to make sense :-) Amos, Very hypothetical. And the perfect answer to the lack of physical proof. It can't exist because this is the continuum where it doesn't exist or else we wouldn't be talking about it because it would exist. You could start a cult with that kind of "logic". Still, the Swiss have demonstrated experimentally that the EPR paradox isn't a paradox at all and god really does play dice with the universe so all bets are off. Regards John |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Amos Date: 24 Feb 01 - 10:38 PM John: What's the EPR acronym stand for? As to dice, I think that's relative to the number of variables into which you have insight and control. Einstein of all people might have understood that -- if all measures of space and time are relative, it's a good bet that the degree of unpredictability of a given set of events is as well. For a silly example, consider the difference between reading a barometer and praying to Tuke the Weather Deity. One gives you a fraction more predictability and as Arthur Clarke said, any technology sufficiently advanced will look like magic to the unindoctrinated. Well, the difference is just the number of variables that have been identified and correctly weighted. Regards, A |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Little Hawk Date: 24 Feb 01 - 10:45 PM Amos - I wouldn't be surprised! He's a crafty son of a gun, and I've known stranger things to happen...it is intriguing to consider the possibility that my most cogent and lucid postings have emanated not from me, but from a baboon. Gad! I fear that my mind may have become unhinged by my secret studies. I should never have had the temerity to open the pages of the accursed Necronomicon (dare I utter its name!!!)...even now I feel the dread tentacles of Cthulhu's nameless minions stretching inchoately across the ethereal bounds of innermost space, inexorably closing upon my vitals! Fruit! I must have fruit! Damn that baboon! - LH John - You could start a cult or two with the kind of logic that has produced the Democratic and Republican parties too...actually, it's already happened! The horror! The horror! :-) And...there will never be physical evidence for what is not physical...and that's a great deal of what makes life worth living. Whether UFO's are not physical is a hard one to answer, however, at this point. - LH |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Troll Date: 24 Feb 01 - 10:50 PM LH, not bad Lovecraft but you'd best be careful. Calling HIS name can sometimes summon HIM. And HE might be hungry. troll |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Amos Date: 24 Feb 01 - 10:55 PM LH: I am awed by your talents; but they seem anomalous, and I have to ask how you came by them; I am suspicious, and very afraid that you may have made a terrible, terrible mistake. But, then again, what's done is done, and we may as well enjoy your unearthly talents until the time comes when you must pay the awful fee.... |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Skeptic Date: 24 Feb 01 - 11:22 PM Amos, I could never do it justice. This link explains the Einstein Podalsky Rosen Paradox. Einstien apparently had quipped that it had to be a paradox or it would mean that god does play dice with the universe. And as I understood it, the basic idea is that you split a particle in two, they go rocketing off into space. Measuring the spin of one instantaneously causes a change in the other. They react as if they were still a single particle. (Unfortunately the math also indicates you can't predict which will have which spin.) They did an experiment in Switzerland using 7+ miles of fiber cable and found that that's what seems to happen. The only way it can be instantaneous is if relativity is wrong. In theory, the separation can be 7 miles or 7 light years and it would still be instantaneous. The next step was to use a longer stretch of cable in case it was instrument error. I came across it in a book called CHAOS MIRROR (At least I think that was the book it was in. If not its still a great overview of non-linearity.) Maybe Wolfgang can help out and correct me if I read it wrong. Regards John |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Amos Date: 25 Feb 01 - 12:03 AM Right -- I've heard of the experiments, just forgot what they were called. It's upsetting because it implies that supraluminal transfer of information is possible. There was a related article in which the conclusion was drawn that they had actually "ported" a particle from A to B without having to go through the space in between, which of course has terrible implications for Newtonian space addicts who would fall to pieces if their continuum turned out not to be so contiguous after all! But it was only a quantum event; there's no reason to assume it could be scaled up to micro- or macro-scale. It's be pretty neat, though, and it could give a whole new meaning to the old idea of space exploration! Well, I know this is just speculation. But that's what I do best. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Skeptic Date: 25 Feb 01 - 09:41 AM Amos, You know teh scaling issue and so do I. Want to bet its used to expalin all sorts of unexplainable phenomena? Regards John |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Bill D Date: 25 Feb 01 - 11:08 AM now, anyone who has read at length KNOWS that the route to explaining the unexplainable is.......Pataphysics |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: hesperis Date: 25 Feb 01 - 01:26 PM Skeptic, I merely made a blue clicky out of the previous guys un-clicky link. (Those joeclones must have changed it without saying anything.) I haven't even seen the website yet, and have no clue what you're talking about with the pictures. |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: hesperis Date: 25 Feb 01 - 11:48 PM I seem to have killed it... *sigh* |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Little Hawk Date: 26 Feb 01 - 12:33 AM Okay, guys...here's my non-scientific explanation for how the 2 halves of the "particle" can be affected simultaneously by something being done to only one of them, even if the other one is 22 light years away from it.... 1. The whole universe, as we know it, is a single unity, manifesting as many apparently separate things and events. It began as an inconceivably tiny singularity, which in fact did not exist at all in any measurable sense (prior to the "big bang"). 2. What happens to one part of any of it is connected to all the other parts, because it is still a singularity. Some religions refer to this singularity as God, which is to say that it is intelligent, purposeful, and aware of what it's doing. 3. The religions are correct in that assumption. Everything is intelligent, purposeful, and aware...although most things do not appear so to a human observer, because their purposes are not at all apparent to him or relevant to his present conscious agenda...given the fact that his powers of observation are extremely limited, as is his awareness. Not to mention his horizons... 4. Now, a particle (which is really a bundle of intelligent energy, formed into an identifiable association which we call a particle) has its own specific intelligent identity...you might say, its own destiny...and its own soul. If you split the particle in half, then both halves still carry the original intelligent identity which formed the whole particle. It doesn't matter how far apart you spread those parts, they still belong to one consciousness...the consciousness that brought them into being. That is a non-material and intelligent soul. 5. If you "poke" one of them, therefore, the other one feels it instantly. Why? Because thought "moves" much faster than light...instantaneously, in fact. Because thought is already everywhere, it doesn't actually have to move at all. It's simply there. Always. All ways. It's also "nowhere"...meaning it's now here, but you can't see it or measure it. You could also express that by saying that God is omnipresent, which is true, but the word God offends some people, so let's just call it "thought" then, or "life", or "existence" instead...or manifestation. Show me anything that isn't manifestation. You can't. If you don't want to call it "God", fine, it's still manifestation...which is why if you believe in anything at all, then you believe (at least partly) in God, as I define God. You can't help but believe in it, according to my definition. This has very little to do with any organized religion, by the way, unless you go into the teachings of the mystic adepts in those various traditions. 6. It was purposeful thought that made the big bang happen. Why? Probably in order to manifest, observe, an experience all the extremely interesting after effects of that event in a 3 dimensional reality, which is what we have around us now...plus time...which is the measure of movement through that reality. 7. What is formless, infinite, and eternal might wish to manifest as form, limitation, and temporal manifestation. What is perfect might wish to masquerade as imperfection. What is a single unity might wish to appear as many separate beings and things. 8. Why? Because how can formlessness be understood without the experience of form? How can unlimitedness be grasped without the experience of limitation? How can the one infinite unity observe itself unless it separates into an infinite number of singularities so that it can look at all the aspects of itself from each separate point of view? 9. And there you have it. That's why I would rather talk about what an angel is, rather than count how many of them fit on the head of a particular pin...which is what most "science" does. Compared to what Lao-Tse or Jesus had to teach, most modern science is pretty mundane stuff as far as I'm concerned. Einstein, however, was not mundane at all. He was very well tuned in. Boy, that was fun. And yes, I'm serious. - LH |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Skeptic Date: 26 Feb 01 - 01:03 AM Little Hawk Boy, that was fun. And yes, I'm serious. I was afraid you were. Refer to Bill D's link to pataphysics. (great one Bill) Why is thought instantaneous (other than that if it isn't, your non-scientific explanation doesn't work)? I'm sure that quantum physicists rest easier to night. Although on a serious note, at least one physicist has proposed the singularity idea and argued that all that exists is just interference wave patterns. Including us. Regards John |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Little Hawk Date: 26 Feb 01 - 09:30 AM Yup. I thought you'd enjoy it, John. :-) Anyway, it doesn't matter a hang whether various other people believe this stuff or not, because it's normal for all forms of belief and unbelief to exist, and it's no skin off my nose. The universe will still keep on unfolding as it should in any case, and the scientists will go on measuring and describing phenomena and the mystics will go on finding meaning behind those phenomena and the poets will go on writing songs about the meaning of it all. Everyone has a part in the dance. Great fun indeed! - LH |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Amos Date: 26 Feb 01 - 09:34 AM Thought transmits at the speed of Is. Instantaneous is as close a word as we have for it. While Little Hawk's post seems imponderable from a physics perspective, it is very sound in most respects from a metaphysics perspective, a perspective that phsyicists don't enjoy wandering in because it is so riddled with intepretation, opinion and even superstition. That doesn't mean there is no such subject. But its hard to make the transition from disciplined material science to disciplined metaphysics.
The error of assuming that thought is the same as EMF frequency transmission (just because it tickles the brain) is a self-fulfilling prophecy, a fallacious extension of the sort that goes "All existence is physical; thought seems to exist; therefore thought must be material." But this is thread slip of magnitude, I submit. A
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Skeptic Date: 26 Feb 01 - 09:39 AM Amos, Thread slip indeed. Perhaps we'll get into this again later. Regards John |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Grab Date: 26 Feb 01 - 10:48 AM *big grin* LH! Asimov wrote a good windup paper once - he was working with some stuff in his lab which dissolved as soon as it was added to the solvent, and someone said, "If this stuff was any more soluble, it'd dissolve before we put it in". Which got Asimov thinking, so he wrote a mock paper on it, complete with fake references. The theory went that the stuff had precognitive properties, so it would dissolve slightly before it entered the solvent. He then says about the obvious cause and effect problem - what happens if you push the stuff towards the solvent, and then yank it back in the time between when it dissolves and when it reaches the solvent? The answer of course is that it doesn't dissolve - the stuff knows that you were going to yank it back so it wouldn't've been dissolved anyway. :-) Incidentally LH, the problem with the theory is that each particle is only doing what it wants to, therefore it can change its mind. If gravity only happens bcos every particle in your body _wants_ to head towards the middle of the Earth, you have to consider the possibility that at some point they may change their mind and you'll float off! :-) It also begs the question of what you are - every particle has intelligence, but you're made up of particles. Is your intelligence then just provided by one electron in your brain, and all the rest of the substance of your body just happens to want to hang around with that electron? What happens if they fall out, and your arm runs off on its own? Grab.
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Little Hawk Date: 26 Feb 01 - 12:30 PM Grab - Okay... All the particles in my body are intelligent, all right, but they are engaged in a cooperative venture (forming my body and maintaining it), just as the many tiny organisms that make up a Portuguese Man-O-War jellyfish are engaged in a cooperative venture. That's why they don't change their minds and take off. (Some actually do "take off", but not so many that it's a real problem, and others are constantly joining the venture.) Above and beyond all that is a higher intelligence that pondered forming that cooperative venture in the first place, and then called together many little bundles of intelligence in order to do it. On a physical level it all began with just a few cells, but the higher intelligence kept adding to that a bit at a time and built a growing body. Such is the case with all living things. If and when the higher intelligence decides it doesn't really want to be here anymore...or the conditions have changed and it's not viable to be here anymore (like you just got run over by a truck, for instance)...then the cooperative deal is terminated, and the many little cells do start to disassociate and disperse, and find themselves new roles in creation. We call that death and decay...breaking down of substance. The higher intelligence goes on to the next project without a "dent in the fender". That answers part of what you asked about, but not all. Later for the rest... Someone oughta do the "blue clicky" thing and we can ramble on about this almost forever, I suspect. - LH |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Rollo Date: 26 Feb 01 - 08:13 PM I got an interesting book about physicians and metaphysics I want to reccomend to you all. I don't know if an english translation exists. Dürr, Hans-Peter and others: "Gott, der Mensch und die Wissenschaft", Augsburg 1997 ("God, Human and Science") It is based on a diskussion by five scientists from physics, philosophy, theology, and biology. Personally I believe there is no gap between physical and metaphysical views of the world. Following christian lore god created the world from nothing, which means he is no part of it, but the world be part of god. This is in no way differing to physical theories about the universe. Time being part of the space/time-continuum, would be created by god as well as the rest of the world, so the question "What was before the big bang" doesn't arise when you are looking for a metaphysical entity. physics only describes the structure of the world, not the outside, which would be neccessary to win scientific results about the existence of god or other metaphysical beeings. But it is not the job of physics to think about such problems. The word "Meta-physics" describes all this in a perfect way. But when you accept the existence of a metaphysical entity, it is irrelevant wether the "quantums" forming the world are intelligent by themselves or just following the rules set up by the creator, because everything being part of this "super-natural" intelligence. Everything is part of the creation,so it is part of god. |
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Subject: RE: BS: We Are Not (well maybe) Alone From: Amos Date: 26 Feb 01 - 09:15 PM This thread, of great interest, is continued in a second installment which can be found over here. |