BS: Are we alone?

Subject: BS: Are we alone?
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Apr 21 - 04:27 PM

Are we alone?
No, but we're getting lonlier. The universe is probably about 15 billion years old but it has expanded perhaps 96 billion light years and its hard to say what is beyond the visible horizon. This concept is complicated further by saying the big bang happened everywhere when created space time was small. So for the last 10 billion years conscious life has had time to evolve in special places. The time to visit each other ould have happened when we all lived closer to one another in a smaller universe. The odds of a visit strikes me as becoming less likely with each passing day. There could be nearby neighbors or species that have no home to go back to, or reach if they tried.
Scientists say that the universe is not intuitive to our minds. Thats one way to look at it considering the truths of quantum mechqnics but lets look at the similarities. I say we are a universe in ourselves that is born from something very small. When we were eggs we were .2 millimeters at most, just barely visible to an adult. The universe was tiny too. We will die, so will the universe in a thinned out big chill.
We are not one individual but are actually many lifeforms in that half our body weight is countless millions of bacteria. The universe is also a conglomeration of countless stuff. We get bigger, so does the universe etc etc etc.

We are made from the universe and obviously share some of the big things that the universe also experiences as Rap recently mentioned, everybody poops.

Will we get along with aliens? Probably no better than we get along with people on line.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Apr 21 - 05:03 PM

The galaxy we're in isn't expanding, and it's a fair old size, so I wouldn't worry too much. Not that I think we're too likely to run into anyone else any day soon, if ever.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: Mr Red
Date: 01 May 21 - 02:05 AM

hard to say what is beyond the visible horizon

There was this school of thought that says: "what if light is bent by the passing of so much mass that we are seeing ourselves in the past?"
After all, History repeats itself.

And our view of the very very small is incomplete. There is a measured discrepancy at Fermi Labs and at Cern where scientists are now pondering if we have all the particles named and nailed-down. And they still don't know why gravity's force is so small by comparison with the others. And gravity takes us back to the bending light hypothesis.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: robomatic
Date: 01 May 21 - 07:03 AM

Either we're alone, and that is deep and incredible.

Or we're not alone, which is also deep and incredible.

If you're into the deep meta, it's win-win!

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: Donuel
Date: 01 May 21 - 08:34 AM

McGrath, Then we can rule out extragalacticans.
Red, cool.
robo, deep.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 01 May 21 - 09:13 AM

I am.


Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: Bill D
Date: 01 May 21 - 10:06 AM

Oh, I'd bet that in the vastness of time & space, there are.. and have been.. other 'beings' complex enough to ask the same question.

I also doubt the bet will ever be settled. I'd like to be wrong about never finding out..but...

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 01 May 21 - 10:13 AM

I think We're alone Now

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 01 May 21 - 11:17 AM

I like the math idea... Life is, apparently, likely anywhere within the Goldilocks zones for gravity, water and air. Multicellular life is highly unlikely. Intelligence, vanishingly rare, perhaps.

Planets in such zones may be vanishingly rare.

But this is a biiiiiiiiig universe. The chances of it having only happened once? Infinitesimal.

But the likelihood of us ever *encounter* such other intelligences, infinitesimal again.

So I don't worry about it. I just assume the galaxy is full of life but it's spread out and unlikely to encounter us.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: Bill D
Date: 02 May 21 - 10:35 AM

...and there are millions of galaxies....

I love science-fiction stories which posit FTL travel and speculation about what alien civilizations might be like.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 02 May 21 - 12:10 PM

"The chances of it having only happened once? Infinitesimal."

I'm not so sure. It's a rock-solid bet that that any life in the universe progresses via evolution by natural selection. It took billions and billions of tiny steps over three billion years to progress from simple multicellular organisms to our advanced civilisation. Only a tiny percentage of planets will possess suitable materials and the environmental conditions needed to drive that process. It's about as likely as a chimpanzee randomly banging typewriter keys managing to type the Bible. But it is a very big universe.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: Donuel
Date: 02 May 21 - 01:56 PM

Actual scientific math shows the odds are most challenged by an encounter within the time frame of two co-existing civilizations over 10 billion years and not monkeys randomly typing the Bible.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 02 May 21 - 02:04 PM

Depends who you mean by we and what you mean by alone.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: Donuel
Date: 03 May 21 - 08:12 AM

Good point. In a star trek movie 'we' meant whales.

Alone is silly when there are other conscious species right here on earth.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 03 May 21 - 09:39 AM

We includes all terrestrial life. Is terrestrial life all the life there is? I doubt it. Are the terrestrial intelligence sall the intelligences there are? My guess is no but we'll never know. One guess, that.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: gnu
Date: 06 May 21 - 08:51 AM

I am alone. I like it that way.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: GUEST
Date: 06 May 21 - 06:23 PM

Suppose the probability of intelligent life (per unit volume) is zero. Then it still might have happened somewhere, and wherever it happened, there we would be. (If you fire a point bullet at a target, the probability of hitting a particular point is zero, but you are bound to hit some point if you hit the target at all.) However, the current picture seems to be that the whole universe is effectively infinite (the distant parts of the *observable* universe are winking out, but we are winking out from their point of view, and they can see stuff that we can't). But now, suppose that the probability of intelligent life is nonzero but extremely small. Then there might be no hope of finding another example in the observable universe, but almost surely (i.e., with probability 1) it has happened infinitely often, and in one of the places where it has, there we are. We cannot expect to distinguish these possibilities.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: Donuel
Date: 07 May 21 - 08:06 AM

Good thinking guest.
As tenacious as life has been on Earth while it has lived through lava hot impact eons as well as totally frozen snowball Earth millenias, it seems to me life is most certain to be elsewhere over a wider range of extremes than we can imagine.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: Donuel
Date: 08 May 21 - 02:47 PM

People familiar with Gaia have run accross Panpsychism. Physics gives us behavioral structure; panpsychism is a proposal about what underlies that behavioral structure. Think about a mathematical model in economics that’s just a bunch of equations that abstracts away from the concrete realities of labour, prices, etc. The reality of labour doesn’t add to the reality specified by that model - to the contrary, labour is the very thing one of those symbols refers to Similarly, according to panpsychism, physics gives us mathematical models that abstract away from the concrete reality of a universe filled with consciousness. The term ‘mass’ refers to something that physics characterises in terms of its behaviour but which in its intrinsic nature is a form of consciousness. If that view makes sense, then there’s no conflict with physics. There are all sorts of ways you could (and people do) challenge it, but IF consciousness is a fundamental reality then at some point physics will join panpsychism in a theory of everything. On the other hand if the universe is all inanimate and unconscious but the Earth is the only exception then everything is all physics and no consciousness. Meaning we are alone.
I doubt it.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 May 21 - 07:36 PM

What a load of obscurantist bollocks. Still, an entertaining read if nothing else.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: Ebbie
Date: 10 May 21 - 02:07 PM

My notion is that even if we are NOT alone, we would not/do not recognize it.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 May 21 - 08:22 PM

Without wishing to ponder this too narrowly, I think it's difficult to imagine life in any kind huge diversity and complexity existing that isn't predicated on liquid water and carbon compounds. The home planet must exist for millions of years, if not billions, in a Goldilocks zone. The atmosphere must be such as to protect evolving life from radiation from the parent star. And then life has to kick-start. Suppose everything is just right, but life doesn't kick-start. Or that some kind of photosynthetic process never evolves. I mean, the current thinking is that life on Earth started just once. I know that there are probably billions of planets that might fit the bill. We have no idea what the probability of that kick-start was. To get us from the slime of three or more billion years ago to where we are now required a multitude of fortuitous stops in evolution, any one of them not taking place potentially ruining the whole project. The Earth may well have changed drastically again and again, but evolution can keep up, once it's firing away. A big if. Big ifs all round. Humble life-forms of some kind might be arising in many parts of the universe. Getting from humble to here means a myriad cogs, all meshing in harmony for billions of years. I don't think there will be very many "advanced civilisations" out there at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 May 21 - 08:49 PM

And I will post with my reading glasses on in future.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 11 May 21 - 06:37 AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMoq9GoQmlE&ab_channel=RussellBrand



...??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 May 21 - 07:14 AM

all the time i can play music i do not need aliens, thankyou for you consideration.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: Donuel
Date: 11 May 21 - 07:19 AM

I always thought red dwarf stars could have planets with life since they last longer than our sun but red dwarfs have violent episodes that makes trouble for life. Water acts like a solvent and is every where. It does seem best for life. Slow life would be possibly invisible to us as much as fast life so Ebbie sounds correct also.

Steve are you familiar with some of the strange aspects of water and how its crystals can make extraordinary beauty depending on exo-factors?
The science may be hooey but it almost seems it is influenced -gulp- by good thoughts.
I think the universe wants to be conscious. Even a cat is consious to an amazing degree. Bacteria has intention if not a kind of consciousness.
When I look at the mega scale pictures of the universe it looks like a microscopic picture of living tissue. That is as far as I can go when tip toeing into pseudo science or something called para this or that..

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 May 21 - 07:50 AM

Water is an amazing solvent. It is liquid at temperatures that don't destroy organic molecules. It exhibits capillary action and surface tension. It starts to expand as the temperature drops below 4C (the calculation is that if water behaved "normally" in this regard, the oceans would be frozen solid from the bottom up and life on earth would be impossible). It has an amazing specific heat capacity. It facilitates chemical reactions in solution better than anything else. It is scarcely compressible in liquid form. It can exist as solid, liquid and gas all at the same time. Lotsastuff. I can't imagine any form of life other than extremely "primitive" that is not predicated on water. And don't get me started on carbon.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: Donuel
Date: 11 May 21 - 08:55 AM

Haha
I have never seen a grey or a mantis man but I have seen a suspected life form that amazed me, and my cat. Going full circle I posted here 20 years ago that two globes of light slowly passed through brick walls to reveal the surprise of my life. We are electrodynamic but these things were possibly 4 dimensional and electrodynamic life forms. My cat appeard it was responding to sound but I didn't hear anything. I jumped on the couch to touch one but I was too wary to stick my finger beyond the outer glowing diffuse nebulous shell. 2 meters behind the first globe, followed the second. We have all seen amazing lifeforms but this was a one off for me. I tried to follow them but I lost them when they passed through the opposite wall effortlessly and silently.
Afterwards I was very excited yet confused and my cat had puffed up double its size in this hair raising event.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 May 21 - 09:36 AM

Ball lightning. I've seen it myself. An electric red glowing sphere as big as a beach ball drifting up the street at roof level. Lasted two minutes and vanished into Epping Forest. It left no trail but it did make a faint hissing sound. I was on my own and I can't prove it.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: robomatic
Date: 11 May 21 - 05:16 PM

Hasn't our life on earth been defined as water getting to know itself?

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: Donuel
Date: 11 May 21 - 05:50 PM

cute robo
Ball lightning is the best Razor explanation but with no sulferous smell.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: Donuel
Date: 11 May 21 - 06:19 PM

https://www.britannica.com/story/does-ball-lightning-exist

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 May 21 - 07:20 PM

What I saw was just after midnight on a sultry summer's evening in the early 80s. I'd gone outside to get my cat in (I'm having the same trouble this very evening). There was no-one else in the street to corroborate my claim. I asked around next day - nobody. Nary a drop had passed my lips. I know what I saw but I don't expect anyone to believe me. It can't have been anything else. By the way, there was a bit of what looked like smoke but the wind was in the wrong direction for me to smell anything. It was stunning experience but how good it would have been to have shared it...

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 May 21 - 07:19 PM

"It's about as likely as a chimpanzee randomly banging typewriter keys managing to type the Bible."

That's essentially what actually happened. Close relatives of the chimpanzee, and actually typing it out came later, but that's just details.

These analogies can be deceptive. Bertrand Russell used the concept of a teapot in orbit round the sun as being a case of something the existence of which could not be disproved, but which was clearly impossible - and yet there are any number of teapots sitting on shelves in kitchens here on earth, and indubitably they are in orbit round the sun, along with their owners.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 May 21 - 07:32 PM

I note that the common element between Steve and Donuel's ball lightning experience is the presence of a cat...

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 May 21 - 08:01 PM

Well the cat (Pud was his name) was purely peripheral in my case! :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 May 21 - 07:32 AM

I note that the common element between Steve and Donuel's ball lightning experience is the presence of a cat... a catastrophe

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: Donuel
Date: 13 May 21 - 08:35 AM

Bertrand Russel ALSO made references to the possibility of advanced physics being as far out as the far fringes of spiritualism.
This is a nod to what we call panpsychism today.

I have the freedom to change my mind and admit the materialism of particle physics is a dead. I have satirized, doubted and critisized it for decades. However tweeking it a bit can answer the oddities of quantum mechanics and the dead ends of math.

btw   the ease ball lightning has to pass through walls is creepy and why when I touched it did it not discharge? I admit I was not grounded.
My co witness was a Manx.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 13 May 21 - 02:09 PM

I'll be really pissed off if we find out there is a god..

.. And it's a cat...

But that would explain the sheer irrationality and cruelty of the universe...

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 May 21 - 03:25 PM

That would piss off all those dyslexic agnostics who lie awake worrying whether there's a dog...

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: Bill D
Date: 13 May 21 - 05:39 PM

Dyslexic, agnostic insomniacs.... *grin*. always loved that one!

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: Donuel
Date: 13 May 21 - 05:46 PM

I can not even imagine mankind believing in a universe that had both experienced as well as inexperienced electrons. Uniting panpsychism with physics works with the very small but I don't see a connection to the really big because I don't have any of the really big consciousnes... In materialism we can look at atoms, the sub atomic bits then field vectors and ever smaller bits down to theoretical strings in a never ending rabbit hole. With pure Panpsychism there is no duality or threshold but a animate quality in all the same stuff we can split into smaller pieces. A table will not have conciouness but is composed of stuff that has experience. ? !
Its like I am the tail of a pachyderm and have very little conception of the elephant but I am connected nonetheless even if I can never look Horton in the eye.

Some will object to any attempt to join physics with philosophy but its worth try without losing any sleep over it.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 13 May 21 - 08:40 PM

You're saying you're an elephant's arse..
Or just staring up one..???

One way of thinking about the meaning of existence, I suppose..

That reminds me, I've just rediscovered the magic mushroom pamphlet
I bought in a hippie shop back in 1979...

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: skarpi
Date: 14 May 21 - 02:50 AM

no we are not alone, have never been and never will.
we have been told a lie about our history on earth and things been hidden from us, any if some one is wondering why they dont conntact , they already have, but what would you do if the ET would stand in front of you , shoot first ask qestion s later or communicate in peace.

I would choose the second one , and dont forget that we are for other s ETs an Alien spieces living on earth in the Milkyway Galaxy.

all the best Skarpi

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 May 21 - 12:32 PM

A better analogy than an elephant might be an octopus. There are so many neurones in all parts of an octopus that it's valid to think of the all parts of the body as. being in a sense parts of the brain, responsible for the goings on of that part of that part of the body, but very much involved with the activity of the whole creature.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: JHW
Date: 15 May 21 - 04:42 PM

The next nearest thing we're looking at now is Mars. Was there ever life there?
Maybe and maybe someone like us has already been and killed it.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: Donuel
Date: 15 May 21 - 06:10 PM

McGrath, thats true but Horton is funnier to me.
Still an elephant's tail or an octopus tentacle does not have eyes.
To look upon the face of God in our universe might take a different universe and even then they might not see eye to eye

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: Donuel
Date: 16 May 21 - 07:52 PM

I would give the grand prize for the truthfulness award to skarpi.
Tonight 60 Minutes featured UAP and ATIP advanced radar pictures and more of what the rest of us call UFOs. 4 different types of craft were shown. 80,000 mph was clocked and G forces were assumed to be impossible for Earth beings.
Witnesses, politicians, restored investigation and policies werer most concerned with threat ssesmnt thansimpke realities.

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: Donuel
Date: 17 May 21 - 07:12 AM

Pentagon admits ufos are real

Subject: RE: BS: Are we alone?
From: Donuel
Date: 17 May 21 - 07:28 AM

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ufo-military-intelligence-60-minutes-2021-05-16/


When I recently posted a political link between UFOs and the new administration some of you laughed. Its here.