Alien Life Semi-Confirmed by NASA. (This may be historic)

[captncaveman]

I'm really hope for more evidence to come across really. Either form a probe or one of the cameras out there floating around in space. I think it was a Macleans mag (Canadian mag) they were talking about NASA finding currently 50 plus new planets that are in ideal living conditions, very comparable to earth. It was a very interesting read. Now if we could get some samples or even some really great pictures of the planets them selves and they come back really positive for life, then funding and research will be top priority for sure. Then the general public will be more involved. I remember my dad speaking about the moon landing, EVERYONE was interested. I sure hope this interest will return.

Darwin- my point wasn't evidence for evolution, I am very confident that prior research has proven evolution to be true. But each has his/her own opinion. I was speaking more of the point of evidence of life else where. It has been a pet-peeve of mine when discussing life in the extra terrestrial realm and many but not all religious folk call it nonsense and try to use scriptures or to disprove this theory. In no way does this disprove a "God", but i am an atheist. The only sure way we will find out if there is a "God" is upon death, and i worry not. But this is for another thread.

[Darwin]

Captncaveman I wasn't referring to your post particularly but rather making general observations about the whole contentious "seeding" business which seems to interest the non-religious rather more than the religious whose minds are fairly made up about the issue. In terms of whether there is life elsewhere, in other star systems particularly, that is a very un-contentious stand. As planet finding techniques improve we may well find Earth-like planets in the dozens, hundreds, or thousands, and the probability of many of them harboring life is virtually 100%. As for humans being able to explore these worlds close-up that is another matter entirely and I'm not sanguine about our chances in the remotely foreseeable future. Of course the trick to FTL speeds could be solved tomorrow, I'd bet against it at whatever odds one cares to suggest, or in the next century but our chances of being able to actually implement the required technology may well evade us for very many years. After all we know perfectly well why nuclear fusion works but we've been working on using it for generating electricity for half a century and we have no working commercial powerplants to show for all that effort. We will doubtless sneak up on workable fusion power by degrees but even if we soon come to understand the physics of faster-than-light space travel the materials and energy requirements bid fair to need an even longer gestation period.

I am indeed all for fielding a giant space telescope than could directly image Earth-like planets and would consider the huge investment well spent but that is a far more trivial technological task than implementing real FTL spaceships. We may be planetary looky-lous for many decades, or even centuries, to come. With the wealth of resources represented by our solar system our R&D could bear enormous fruit in that regard whatever else obtains in our efforts to explore other systems. I despair to think how many gig-bucks have been wasted on the space station program that could have been used in pursuit of workable high-power fission or fusion powered drive systems that could open up timely exploration and exploitation of our own immediate neighborhood. Bugger going in endless circles around the mother planet and let's get the hell out there already.

[Premium Parrots]

I think we should first try to find intelligent life on earth.

[Darwin]

I think we should first try to find intelligent life on earth.

Oh man talk about a task that's beyond us.

[captncaveman]

I think we should first try to find intelligent life on earth.

There is a lot of intelligent life on earth, obviously you are looking in the wrong spot sir.

[GoVegan]

I think we should first try to find intelligent life on earth.

We would all be much better off if we spent our time searching for that perfect fleshlight instead. I am still waiting to see a fleshlight that allows you to put in some tobacco at the other end so you can pack your pris at the same time.

[captncaveman]

GoVegan - if you have to stomach for it, there is a very and i mean VERY sick individual on www dot sickshit dot com that has done very questionable acts with red man chaw. It involves a pencil for packing the tobacco and his junk..... a guy @ work thought it was really funny and forwarded the link to many. There is no going back once viewing the video might i warn you.

[GoVegan]

GoVegan - if you have to stomach for it, there is a very and i mean VERY sick individual on www dot sickshit dot com that has done very questionable acts with red man chaw. It involves a pencil for packing the tobacco and his junk..... a guy @ work thought it was really funny and forwarded the link to many. There is no going back once viewing the video might i warn you.

I can't. This girl I work with showed me some website that featured stuff like a cab driver with his head blown off and it just depresses me. Somebody here had posted a video earlier of some guy trying to jump off a pier but then he accidentally hits a wall. They then show how his whole face is virtually gone but he was still alive for a while. Videos like that just seem bad, bad bad.

You know what, I never really liked meat much but I used to eat it. I would usually go vegetarian off and on since about 6th grade. I remember watching this movie called Faces Of Death when I was in the military. They were showing an inside view of a slaughterhouse while I was trying to eat some pepperoni pizza. Needless to say, I always felt terrible about eating meat after seeing that movie.

[captncaveman]

Oh the classic faces of death videos. Some of them are rather twisted! I worked in a slaughter house through out my high school career, it never really bothered me (being a farm kid i guess). Any way this is getting of topic fast....

[spirit72]

Then you get the whack jobs out there that will try to find a way to dismiss this proof. Since "their god" created life on earth, since there "book" or "books" never mentions other planets or other life they will claim its another trick from the devil.... have you ever ran across the folks that think dinosaur bones were planted to test our faith?

I've always responded to the 'Why wouldn't God have told us' set with 'Why WOULD God have told us?'.

[GoVegan]

I've always responded to the 'Why wouldn't God have told us' set with 'Why WOULD God have told us?'.

Good Point. I believe that we are put here on earth to grow and purify ourselves spiritually. We will continue to be reborn until we have worked out our temptations and desires. Kind of like a boot camp for souls. Not knowing everything and living under the Veil of Maya is what makes these lessons we must learn realistic.

[sgreger1]

I am indeed all for fielding a giant space telescope than could directly image Earth-like planets and would consider the huge investment well spent but that is a far more trivial technological task than implementing real FTL spaceships.

I heard this is has already been in progress for a few years, they were building a telescope that would have kind of like a cover over the lens with little diamonds cut out or something, it was supposed to be the first telescope that could focus on details like what the actual planets look like. Our current setups with hubble and stuff is looking a tthe bigger picture and not good at looking at distant-but-small things like planets. I hope I am remembering correctly because I agree this is important.


As for where life came from, I am willing to bet that life is coded into the fabric of nature just like the laws of physics and every other rule that holds this place together. I believe science 100% but if you look around it appears the universe came pre-programmed for certain shit to happen, for matter to arrange itself in a certain way, and for certain outcomes to be inevitable, such as life. I can accept that given enough time the right particles could maybe mix together to make DNA, but honestly the odds against it are too mind boggling for my human brain to ever be able to truly believe it with any real certainty. It seems too complex for it to have just fallen into place like this, from where i'm standing it appears the universe comes programmed with certain fundamental laws that for whatever reason seem to hold this place together, and as far as we know these laws have never changed and do not evolve in any way. With no mechanism for improvement, I don't see how these laws could have just appeared, if they can never change, than how did they form? How did the laws of physics form, did they come preprogrammed? If they are static and always the same, than the universe must have been made by some kind of intelligence. Or perhaps the laws of the universe (law of thermodynamics etc) evolve like everything else? Who knows. Can someone smarter than I please explain this to me?


I'm not sure if god is real or not, but I just don't see how it could all happen without some kind of intelligence behind it, some sort of "organizing force" if you will, not even necessarily a god, but something. As a human it is too hard to believe that the world just appeared this way one day out of nowhere, complete with the laws of physics already programmed into it and everything.

[Darwin]

In the science of cosmology there is what is called the "Many Worlds" interpretation which holds that our universe is merely one in an infinite series of universes where literally any and everything is possible. Only a tiny fraction of these continua might have the "right" specifications that support what we know as life. This makes some sense in light of how finely tuned all our physical constants seem to be to make our brand of carbon based life possible. Each of those putative universes may have slightly differing constants that might rule out our kind of life so what sort might develop there, if any, is likely to be very strange indeed.

Some of the most intractable problems in particle physics are made easier by the Many Worlds interpretation so it is a very useful tool and not merely a convenient crutch for explaining why things are the way they are in this universe. This interpretation may seem astoundingly unlikely but I judge it at least as plausible as the idea that there must be some guiding uber-intelligence pulling the strings in our possibly insignificant 30 billion light year wide chunk of cosmic real estate. I echo the great astronomer Pierre-Simon Laplace when in a meeting with Napoleon wherein he was explaining the mechanisms of the solar system the Emperor asked him where God was in all this massive machine and Laplace replied, "I have no need of that hypothesis." We just might be the winners in the biggest lottery possible.

[sgreger1]

In the science of cosmology there is what is called the "Many Worlds" interpretation which holds that our universe is merely one in an infinite series of universes where literally any and everything is possible. Only a tiny fraction of these continua might have the "right" specifications that support what we know as life. This makes some sense in light of how finely tuned all our physical constants seem to be to make our brand of carbon based life possible. Each of those putative universes may have slightly differing constants that might rule out our kind of life so what sort might develop there, if any, is likely to be very strange indeed.

Some of the most intractable problems in particle physics are made easier by the Many Worlds interpretation so it is a very useful tool and not merely a convenient crutch for explaining why things are the way they are in this universe. This interpretation may seem astoundingly unlikely but I judge it at least as plausible as the idea that there must be some guiding uber-intelligence pulling the strings in our possibly insignificant 30 billion light year wide chunk of cosmic real estate. I echo the great astronomer Pierre-Simon Laplace when in a meeting with Napoleon wherein he was explaining the mechanisms of the solar system the Emperor asked him where God was in all this massive machine and Laplace replied, "I have no need of that hypothesis." We just might be the winners in the biggest lottery possible.

I am familiar with this argument and agree it is just as, if not more, possible than a god being alive. With the many world theory the math works because there is literally an infinite number of possibilities and therefore EVERY possibility that can be played out WILL play out eventually. We may have just "wont the biggest lottery possible", and I am most inclined to agree with this, but I have to say it is equally as difficult to actually "prove" as a god is.


I think it's 50/50. Either there is some intelligence or there is just infinite possibilities and they all play out eventually. I don't know which is more valid as they are both entirely untestable.

[captncaveman]

DMT or a crazy Salvia journey will clear things up.... trust me!