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How many of you believe in Aliens...
jd50ae
Posts: 7,900 ✭✭✭✭✭
...here on Earth..? I'm not talking about people like rain but extraterrestrial beings, or at least UFOs.
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jd50ae
Posts: 7,900 ✭✭✭✭✭
jd50ae
Posts: 7,900 ✭✭✭✭✭
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Given the vastness of the universe I find it easier to accept that there are more forms of intelligent life out there than that we are a unique result on a single planet.
The calculations of galaxies with that have solar systems that could support life is huge. Even if you figured .01% of planets could have intelligent life, the number is kind of staggering.
That said, the amount of hard to explain things could lead one to believe in such things.
It's a lot harder to prove that things do not exist, than it is to prove they do.
Proving they exist only takes one tangible piece of evidence. Proving they do not would take knowing all of the known universe.
To answer the question. Personally, I believe there is intelligent life out there.
Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy cigars and that's close enough.
In any case, it intelligent life exists it's probably totally different than what we think it is. The chances of it being in the form of bipedal descendants of apes is probably negligible. It's far more likely to be in the form of crawling insect like things that live in hive societies, or giant fungus type stuff. There may be intelligent life that actually experience the universe at the subatomic level, rather than our limited "package molecules" level. There may be telepathic races, or those don't require speech or broadcasting to communicate over long distances. We've created our Earth-centric fantasties of flying saucers and little green men as anthropomorphic extension of our own hopes and fears. We want to believe that there are human-like ETs out there; we fear that there are little green men out there who are fascinating by sticking probes into our nether regions. Maybe these kinds of lifeforms do exist, but the odds are against it. If that meteor hadn't hit Earth 65 milliion years ago, chances are we'd all be speaking Raptorese right now.
I'm still waiting for the sci-fi show that will include a species with two "throats" that communicates by talking in harmonies.
I like Oliva and Quesada (including Regius) a lot. I will smoke anything, though.
So you are saying that we are the only race to actually travel into space?
You are saying that there could not possibly be any races out there far more advanced than us that they may have discovered some form of space travel?
And you believe that there is no possible way of traveling faster than the speed of light? Even though scientists are now discovering that some atoms and some sound waves travel faster than the speed of light?
And do you really believe that humans are descendants of apes?
It's odd that man has been trying to determine that link for ages, yet no one has come up with it.
Remember that when you are talking about odds of something happening in the universe, even a 1 in a trillion chance isn't that far fetched to happen.
There may be millions of different races in the universe. Each adapting to their environment.
But I supposed it depends on your definition of intelligent. Sub-atomic would need to be able to communicate to be "intelligent". You're stretching there.
20 years ago, man never gave a thought that there were any "earthlike" planets in the universe, as the conditions would have to be just right to form the planet, yet in 2008, scientists have discovered 3 earthlike planets with in the Milky Way only 42 light years away.
And they have yet to even search with today's technology.
If there are planets out there with a similar make up of Earth this close, imagine how many are really out there. Imagine that some are far older than Earth and that their civilization may be far more advanced than ours.
And imagine that they haven't destroyed their civilizations over and over, like we have.
If one is to really seriously take a look at the universe and what is in it, especially from a mathematical position, you would find that not only is advanced intelligence a possibility, it is a mathematical probability.
This is a debate that can rage on for some time, as different people have different beliefs, but one should really do their homework on ancient lore and stories before making blanket statements about how and what people believed thousands of years ago.
Even today, archaeologists are finding out that what they believed 30 years ago, they had misinterpreted it.
Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy cigars and that's close enough.
Aj
Boy, where to begin.
To start with, I NEVER said that ours was the only race to travel in space or that there were no races more advanced than ours. I also never said that faster-than-light travel was impossible, although there still is no scientific proof whatsoever that is possible. Theoretical is not proof.
What I'm saying is that we view our world--and our universe--from our own perspective, and make assumptions based on our biases and perceptions. Humans are able to "detect" only an infitesimal amount of what's really out there. For all we know, there may be intelligent alien life forms swirling around us in the form of dark matter or energy we can't detect or experience firsthand. There may be intelligent life at the subatomic level--who knows? But just because something may be doesn't mean that is is. An ameoba's view of the universe is completely different than ours. Imagine if they had the intelligence that we did--in their view the universe would be a pond. Imagine if humans had never developed eyes. Had that happened, we would never have suspected that there is anything beyond what we could hear or smell or touch.
Your original argument was that it's harder to disprove things than to prove things. I disagree entirely. From a scientific point of view, the burden of proof rests on the person who claims that something exists, even if the theoretical equations are sound. Einstein's theories of relatively were nothing but theories until they were validated by experimentation. String theory is an extremely elegant theory but, until mechanisms are created to be able to see things at the quantum level there is no way to prove it correct or incorrect. If I claim that unicorns or leprechauns or vampires or demons or little green men or Navajo gods exist, it's up to me to provide scientific proof of their existence. The burden of proof is not on you to prove that they don't exist.
From a stastical POV, the likelihood of intelligent life in the universe is very, very high. So is the likelihood of space-faring aliens somewhere out there. But, realistically, given that the nearest galaxy is a million light years away, the most realistic expectation we have of being visited by aliens are by those in our own galaxy, if they exist. If they haven't conquered the speed of light, the odds of any of them visiting us sometime soon are probably pretty remote. We're far more likely to intercept some kind of radio or TV signal--but that assumes that these species use these technologies and transmit on the frequencies we're likely to receive. I sure hope we do get an alien signal of some kind in my lifetime.
I find it interesting that scientists use mathematics to confirm things, yet they are "theoretical".
One thing about human beings. We only see what we allow our minds to see. So if you believe that something doesn't exist, no argument will sway that belief.
Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy cigars and that's close enough.
Open-minded cientists are willing to change their minds as well, if the evidence is there. . Every reputatble scientist is willing to suspend their own scientific beliefs if better theories--supported by observation--replace them. Until Einstein's theories were proven, most scientists still held on the idea that there was something called "ether" through which energy and matter traveled.Faraday's theories of electric/magnetic fields were scoffed at until Maxwell's mathematics confirmed his findings. Most scientists didn't believe that star clusters they observed in telescopes were actual galaxies and millions of millions of light years away until Hubble's team used a combination of physics and astronomy to demonstrate this truth. Most scientists were skeptical of the Big Bang theory until the X-rays that were predicted would be evidence of this theory were discovered in the 1960s. In every situation, most scientists who didn't believe in a theory changed their minds to accept the new truths. Now, of course, these "truths" may all be an illusion. But until scientific evidence can prove that we're all players in a alien's dream or we all actually reside on some distant multidimension "brane" as predicted by string theory or anything else we have to take the evidence as we see it.
Imagine being the scientist that swore up and down that there was no such thing.
Regardless, whether one believes in UFOs and all that or not, to state that there is no such thing as fact, can't be done.
Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy cigars and that's close enough.
Poor Clyde.
Aj
You've just proven my point. Scientists change their mind when they have evidence in front of their face. But the evidence has to be there. Do you believe mermaids exist? By your logic, we should say that they could exist, even though there's absolutely no evidence that they do. By your logic, you can say that Godzilla, the Tooth Fairy, and Santa Claus probably do exist because, well, I can't conclusively prove that they don't. Therefore, you're more likely to be correct than I am? Doubtful. There's a word used that describes the act of believing in something that can't be proven through a scientific process: faith. There's absolutely nothing wrong with faith. Plenty of scientists have faith than a deity exists and created the universe following the rules of physics that such deity dictated. But that's about as far as it can go--because faith is based on belief, not logic. If a deity came down from the heavens and showed itself to the world, faith would disappear--because we wouldn't simply believe that such deity existed--we'd know from direct experience that it did exist.
Scientists who believe in string theory are practicing faith as well--for all the equations and dimensions they've written, there's no scientific evidence at all to support their theory. However, scientists who doubt string theory will be instantly converted into believers the minutes we can crack the quantum barrier and see the little strings we're all made of. That's the beauty of the scientific method--and what differentiates it from faith. That's not saying one is better than another, or that one has to choose one over the other. You can have both; faith for some things, science for others. It's a matter of personal preference.
Yea I Believe they exist. The truth is out there!
And who doesn't believe in mermaids??