U.F.O's

[Daniel Quinn]

err , you forgot to quote me.

[kimangelis]

As stated earlier, by definition there are UFO's as anything might be unidentified object. If it's flying then it's a UFO. As for visitors from another place or dimension, I think not. Nor is it visitors from our future. Time travel within the same dimension is impossible. One cannot travel into the future as it hasn't happened yet, nor can one travel back in time because it has happened and is effectively 'closed'.

As for life existing in a place other than Earth. Yes it's possible. But given the Universe is circa 15 billion years old and we as a species (carbon-based life forms) have been around for 3.5 billion years (as bacteria), but a mere 7.2 million years (as human), the probability of life existing elsewhere given the very peculiar set of features the Earth has.... temperature, atmosphere, magnetic field, water, stability of its star, combination of organic chemicals et al, make the probability of life developing elsewhere very low.

Additionally, there are 2143 human-existence time-spans within the life of the Universe. Factor that into the 'unique' characteristics of the Earth and you have a probability of life existing at the same (or clearly higher) level so remote as to be nearly impossible.

Anyway... why travel all that way, then appear as a UFO, then go away again?

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Nick - I didn't say mathematical concept, I said conceptually. According to you unless someone understands the maths then they have no understanding of the concept of infinity so cannot talk about. By conceptual understanding (obviously) that word brings a thought process and a visual image of my understanding, and that is of something without end or limits, or that they are not apparent. Within that concept it is not hard to extrapolate out that anything becomes possible if there are no limits on time and space.

I am a visualiser, always have been, the so called proof I leave to others, all my ideas and thoughts are extensions of empiric experience. I only have to look into the night sky to see infinity, I only have to look backward to the past and forward to the future to see infinity. I only have to see inside me further and further back and smaller and smaller to discover infinity and how large I am. Scientists are only just doing this at Cerne. I only have to look outside me to see how thing become bigger and bigger out to infinity to realise how small I am. I am just a fairly static point on all the lines of infinity that stretch outside or inside of me.

Oh and BTW in an infinite universe somewhere there will be dice with 7s on them.

[CycleCoach]

As for life existing in a place other than Earth. Yes it's possible. But given the Universe is circa 15 billion years old and we as a species (carbon-based life forms) have been around for 3.5 billion years (as bacteria), but a mere 7.2 million years (as human), the probability of life existing elsewhere given the very peculiar set of features the Earth has.... temperature, atmosphere, magnetic field, water, stability of its star, combination of organic chemicals et al, make the probability of life developing elsewhere very low.

Additionally, there are 2143 human-existence time-spans within the life of the Universe. Factor that into the 'unique' characteristics of the Earth and you have a probability of life existing at the same (or clearly higher) level so remote as to be nearly impossible.

I think you're wrong. The probability of life elsewhere is VERY HIGH.
https://www.space.com/32711-searching-f ... alone.html

[kimangelis]

That wasn't my entire argument. I didn't say there wasn't a low probability of life elsewhere. I argued that some alien society existing at the same time as ours given the age of the Universe and our existence within that Universe, implies there is no life that would present itself, or even exist within a time-frame where we could both observe or measure an alien presence.

[guydarryl]

Quite a bit of thread drift here UFO's to extraterrestrial life - the two don't necessarily go together.

Imagine conditions for life as we know it, then consider: temperatures in excess of 400 c, pressures of 250 atmospheres, no sunlight and a mix of highly toxic chemicals. We have these conditions around deep sea vents on earth, and they are teeming with life.
There does seem to be some sort of "driving force" in favour of living things evolving - imo.

UFO's: it would be extremely arrogant to assume (again imo) that we are the pinnacle of the development of sentient beings in our galaxy - let alone the universe. Trouble is given the distances involved, without the ability to travel "faster than light" we won't get the opportunity to meet any other "intelligent beings".

I believe that our first contact with other civilisations will be via radio transmissions (if our transmissions just happen to pass the right part of the galaxy at the right time to be picked up by intelligent beings). This is a big concern if you consider that for the last 100 years, or so, we have been sending out broadcasts to our local area of the galaxy - first broadcasts would have made it as far as the nearest 500 or so star systems so far.
What the fuck will they make of our civilisation if they manage to pick up and translate the bulk of our transmissions

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

It will look like random background noise.

[joe]

The Sumerian tablets in the British museum have another slant on life as we know it, they are on the lines of the bible ( old test) in many ways,
And it seems lots of things in modern society are documented in their tablets from 6000 years ago.

I believe they contain the first reference to the Linn 'tune dem'.

[kimangelis]

Partly my point guydarryl. We've been sending out radio transmissions for the last 100 years or so. That's 150 million episodes of broadcast since the start of the Universe. What's the chance of some other civilization being at that level of technology at the same time?

[57charles]

I don't think we actually exist in a material sense and are simply a computer programme.