UFO over Jerusalem

[sgreger1]

@ Frosted & Atreyu:


I think that life has to exist somewhere. If life does exist somewhere else, than it likely indicates that life is not so rare. Either way, we still know for a fact taht 99% of space is empty. Regardless of how abundant life is, life would be noticed in whatever region it is found in, since it will likely be the only life in that region. I still think that if they knew life existed here and they knew how to get here or communicate with us than they would.


I mean we spend lots of time and resources hiking scientists out to every corner of the earth just to observe the habits of some native ant species. Surely alien scientists would make the trip to study intelligent life.


I really really really disagree with you guys that they would not care about us. If they are life in th way we define it, than they would undoubtably be interested in other life form in the same way that we are. There is a giant possibility that alien life would be indestinguishable from us, and there even exists teh possibility that we co-exist with another life form but are unaware of it.

It all has to do with how our brains present reality to us, as well as with what conditions life arose under. If aliens grew up in a totally different planet, their idea of time woud be drastically different. We experience time like this, but that is specially for us, based on our survival in OUR habitat. An alien may experience 10,000 years as 20 human minutes, or an alien may nly live for a single human day (like a fly). I think the biggest mistake would be to assume that life which developed elsewhere independent of us would resemble what we define as life in any real way.


Evolving under such radically different conditions almost surely yielded a different outcome, right?

[sgreger1]

I don't know sgr. The way I figure it, if there's life on earth and life "out there" with that kind of technology, the odds are pretty good life could be abundant elsewhere.
I can't see them wanting to visit a bunch of psychotic apes like us.

We spend lots of money studying actual real life psychotic apes. Pretty sure aliens would spend the resources to study us. Also, we see ourselves as psychotic apes, but aliens may not. They may seek insight into our culture and how life developed here, and they may be looking to answers to question which we do not even know to ask yet. If UFO's are aliens, than it means they are coming here and doijng something which not only doesn't involve US, but also doesn't make sense to us. We percieve them to be coming, doing something momentarily, and then leaving. There may be a whole thing going on that we don't know about. Just like if I went to study apes for "science" they may be coming here to study us for some other reason equivalent to their version of science. Who knows. It's probably all just government aircraft anyways.

[Frosted]

You're absoloutely right about human perception Sgreger.

[Darwin]

The universe is undoubtedly teeming with life but we shouldn't automatically make the logical leap that the speed of light is a conquerable limit in some unknown and unthinkable way. It may well not be conquerable. The universe is constructed entirely without regard to what our dreams, aspirations, and goals may or may not be and the chance that the speed-of-light limit will succumb to some future ultra-technology is very far indeed from guaranteed. It would be very disappointing to our collective imaginations, and my personal one for sure, if this were to turn out to be the case but the universe can only exist as we find it and not as we might wish it. I suspect that if the technology can exist to manage an FTL drive then it will likely involve the marshaling of energies that would make a nuclear weapon look like a wet match and that ability may lie many hundreds or even thousands of years in the future.

The case for the limit being unconquerable is very strong and unless emissaries from an alien civilization announce their presence in a manner far more obvious and demonstrative than lights and vague objects flitting across the sky, like landing a ship on the DC Mall at high noon for instance, we cannot know for sure. I certainly hope we can figure out the trick to FTL but I wouldn't take a thousand to one bet on it happening in this millennium. If aliens are responsible for any of the odd phenomena we see attributed to UFOs then clearly they are only a goofy bunch of puerile teases and cannot be taken too seriously or worried too much about.

[AtreyuKun]

We spend lots of money studying actual real life psychotic apes. Pretty sure aliens would spend the resources to study us. Also, we see ourselves as psychotic apes, but aliens may not. They may seek insight into our culture and how life developed here, and they may be looking to answers to question which we do not even know to ask yet. If UFO's are aliens, than it means they are coming here and doing something which not only doesn't involve US, but also doesn't make sense to us. We percieve them to be coming, doing something momentarily, and then leaving. There may be a whole thing going on that we don't know about. Just like if I went to study apes for "science" they may be coming here to study us for some other reason equivalent to their version of science. Who knows. It's probably all just government aircraft anyways.

Yeah, you could be right. I mean anything is possible right? If these UFO's are truly alien to us, then they obviously have no prime directive about interfering with "undeveloped" worlds.
One thing you said earlier though about different conditions required for different life forms. That's true. A different being could very well be silicon based rather than carbon based, but we have to believe that physics are physics no matter how far from Earth we are. Space, time, and gravity theoretically should behave similarly 9,000 light years away. Now, having said that, I'll refer you to the Kardashev scale about measuring a civilization's level of technological advancement.

Type I is a civilization that is able to harness all of the power available on a single planet.
Type II is a civilization that is able to harness all of the power available from a single star.
Type III is a civilization that is able to harness all of the power available from a single galaxy.
Dr. Michio Kaku even described a Type IV civilization that could harness extragalactic energy sources like dark energy.
We, we're basically a Type 0 meaning that we still burn dead animals to keep us warm.

Anyway, my point to all of this is that if there is a civilization out there can travel in a star ship to bridge to divide to our planet, they had to begin somewhere. Either they were given this technology by their gods from on high, or they evolved far more rapidly than we did. How can you get to star ships without first having a bronze, iron, or information age? I really don't think life that advanced would be that fundamentally far removed from us.

[WickedKitchen]

wow. there's a lot here.

I'm not sure how interested they would be in communicating with us. Learning about us by observation (not only visual providing they have "eyes") is something they might do but study us as anything more than yet another animal I'd be surprised. I don't think that we have enough to offer that would be worth studying. Perhaps music or some forms of art but we still kill each other for stupid stuff. Our physical planet is likely to have nothing of value to them and possibly nothing more than what is needed to sustain us.

I'm not sure I buy the fact that space is 99% uninhabited. I don't think we can observe enough to confidently make this statement. Sure, from the sample, our math tells us this but it's all based on what we've observed.

You might be able to get a spaceship without having a bronze age, iron age, etc if those elements were unnecessary. There could very well be other elements that behave differently than anything we can imagine. I think that's just as possible. Even new laws of physics might be discovered. I certainly hope there is in my lifetime. I'd be shitscared if a UFO landed on the DC mall. Talk about a SHTF scenario...They'd likely be more interested in the terra than the life inhabiting it anyhow. Humanity would surface some new traits I'd say.

[Premium Parrots]

They only way I'll believe in that is if I see it with my own eyes. Even then I remain skeptical.
Not saying it's not possible that someone from another star system could come here, I just can't imagine why they would want to.

two words........


soylent green

[Frosted]

I'd love it to happen. Normal life gets terribly dull after a while so this would be good entertainment.

[sgreger1]

Yeah, you could be right. I mean anything is possible right? If these UFO's are truly alien to us, then they obviously have no prime directive about interfering with "undeveloped" worlds.
One thing you said earlier though about different conditions required for different life forms. That's true. A different being could very well be silicon based rather than carbon based, but we have to believe that physics are physics no matter how far from Earth we are. Space, time, and gravity theoretically should behave similarly 9,000 light years away. Now, having said that, I'll refer you to the Kardashev scale about measuring a civilization's level of technological advancement.

Type I is a civilization that is able to harness all of the power available on a single planet.
Type II is a civilization that is able to harness all of the power available from a single star.
Type III is a civilization that is able to harness all of the power available from a single galaxy.
Dr. Michio Kaku even described a Type IV civilization that could harness extragalactic energy sources like dark energy.
We, we're basically a Type 0 meaning that we still burn dead animals to keep us warm.

Anyway, my point to all of this is that if there is a civilization out there can travel in a star ship to bridge to divide to our planet, they had to begin somewhere. Either they were given this technology by their gods from on high, or they evolved far more rapidly than we did. How can you get to star ships without first having a bronze, iron, or information age? I really don't think life that advanced would be that fundamentally far removed from us.

I am very familiar with the Kardeshev scale. And I share your sentiment that we only know what we have observed, which is next to nothing. I think science is too new, there is no way we figure out all the cool stuff this early on, it's just not possible.

[Frosted]

How come homo erectus has been around for 60,000 years and it's only in the last couple of hundred that we've started progressing in science and the application of science.
Always confused me that.

[Premium Parrots]

How come homo erectus has been around for 60,000 years and it's only in the last couple of hundred that we've started progressing in science and the application of science.
Always confused me that.

laziness

[GoVegan]

My guess is that they were actually looking for a store that sells snus.

[Frosted]

Man for 59,800 years

[Frosted]

New improved modern man.

[sgreger1]

How come homo erectus has been around for 60,000 years and it's only in the last couple of hundred that we've started progressing in science and the application of science.
Always confused me that.

Our written history is only about 7 thousand years old. At the time we invented writing, we were already building pyramids and shit, which means we had already established advanced mathematics and astronomy.

We hear often of plato, aristotle and galileo, but before there was a written record there must have been many great thinkers. I'm sure a lot more happened during the trip from africa to the present day. Nothing super crazy, but I imagine it wasn't all stone tools. I think civilization had began before the written record, but he who rites the records get to decide history I suppose, and some stumbled across writing before the others.