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Hollywoodaction
Joined: 02 Jul 2004
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 Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 12:32 am Post subject: |
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| laogaiguk wrote: |
| Hollywoodaction wrote: |
| mnhnhyouh wrote: |
However the thought of aliens who can get here across the distances we are talking about, and be detected by our technology seems a little far fetched...
I think it likely that there is life elsewhere. I think it orders of magnitude less likely that there is intelligent life out there, and even less likely that there is intelligent life that can cross the stars.
But as you pointed out, there are a vast number of chances for this to occur.
I think the SETI project worth pursuing, and have helped out. But I think it would be better if we could find intelligent life here as well.
h |
and incredibly arrogant. Why would they waste all that time and effort to come see us? Please, no references to V, Star Trek, Close Encounter of the Third Kind, Battlestar Galactica, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, or any other scifi story that 40 year-old virgins have been known to obsess about. |
Well, there are humans who travel thousands of miles in horribly uncomfortable ways just to study ant hills in the middle of a tropical forest . I am sure the ants would wonder why the hell they are doing that  |
It doesn't even compare.
If an ant weighs 1/2 g and the average adult human weighs 65 kg, then an adult would be 130 000 times the size of an ant. Now, if that person travels 10 000miles to study the ant, then--without considering how much distance the average human and ant travels in a day-- you could say that the distance would be the equivalent of 1300 000 000 miles for the ant. Pluto is 2.67 miles from Earth at its closest. Aliens would have to travel much further than that to reach us.
Once again, we aren't worth the trip. |
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laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
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| Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 2:10 am Post subject: |
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| Hollywoodaction wrote: |
| laogaiguk wrote: |
| Hollywoodaction wrote: |
| mnhnhyouh wrote: |
However the thought of aliens who can get here across the distances we are talking about, and be detected by our technology seems a little far fetched...
I think it likely that there is life elsewhere. I think it orders of magnitude less likely that there is intelligent life out there, and even less likely that there is intelligent life that can cross the stars.
But as you pointed out, there are a vast number of chances for this to occur.
I think the SETI project worth pursuing, and have helped out. But I think it would be better if we could find intelligent life here as well.
h |
and incredibly arrogant. Why would they waste all that time and effort to come see us? Please, no references to V, Star Trek, Close Encounter of the Third Kind, Battlestar Galactica, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, or any other scifi story that 40 year-old virgins have been known to obsess about. |
Well, there are humans who travel thousands of miles in horribly uncomfortable ways just to study ant hills in the middle of a tropical forest . I am sure the ants would wonder why the hell they are doing that |
It doesn't even compare.
If an ant weighs 1/2 g and the average adult human weighs 65 kg, then an adult would be 130 000 times the size of an ant. Now, if that person travels 10 000miles to study the ant, then--without considering how much distance the average human and ant travels in a day-- you could say that the distance would be the equivalent of 1300 000 000 miles for the ant. Pluto is 2.67 miles from Earth at its closest. Aliens would have to travel much further than that to reach us.
Once again, we aren't worth the trip. |
The analogy was fine, but you must try to think more out of the box. I don't mean that as an insult, but I can't say it any other way. Who knows they even need to worry about distance, or that they are confined physically to planets like us? |
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Hollywoodaction
Joined: 02 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 6:32 am Post subject: |
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| laogaiguk wrote: |
| Hollywoodaction wrote: |
| laogaiguk wrote: |
| Hollywoodaction wrote: |
| mnhnhyouh wrote: |
However the thought of aliens who can get here across the distances we are talking about, and be detected by our technology seems a little far fetched...
I think it likely that there is life elsewhere. I think it orders of magnitude less likely that there is intelligent life out there, and even less likely that there is intelligent life that can cross the stars.
But as you pointed out, there are a vast number of chances for this to occur.
I think the SETI project worth pursuing, and have helped out. But I think it would be better if we could find intelligent life here as well.
h |
and incredibly arrogant. Why would they waste all that time and effort to come see us? Please, no references to V, Star Trek, Close Encounter of the Third Kind, Battlestar Galactica, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, or any other scifi story that 40 year-old virgins have been known to obsess about. |
Well, there are humans who travel thousands of miles in horribly uncomfortable ways just to study ant hills in the middle of a tropical forest . I am sure the ants would wonder why the hell they are doing that |
It doesn't even compare.
If an ant weighs 1/2 g and the average adult human weighs 65 kg, then an adult would be 130 000 times the size of an ant. Now, if that person travels 10 000miles to study the ant, then--without considering how much distance the average human and ant travels in a day-- you could say that the distance would be the equivalent of 1300 000 000 miles for the ant. Pluto is 2.67 miles from Earth at its closest. Aliens would have to travel much further than that to reach us.
Once again, we aren't worth the trip. |
The analogy was fine, but you must try to think more out of the box. I don't mean that as an insult, but I can't say it any other way. Who knows they even need to worry about distance, or that they are confined physically to planets like us? |
Don't take this as an insult, but you don't have a point. Simply put, you're using an unprovable hypothesis to argue against a fact. |
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laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
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| Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 2:20 pm Post subject: |
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| Hollywoodaction wrote: |
| laogaiguk wrote: |
| Hollywoodaction wrote: |
| laogaiguk wrote: |
| Hollywoodaction wrote: |
| mnhnhyouh wrote: |
However the thought of aliens who can get here across the distances we are talking about, and be detected by our technology seems a little far fetched...
I think it likely that there is life elsewhere. I think it orders of magnitude less likely that there is intelligent life out there, and even less likely that there is intelligent life that can cross the stars.
But as you pointed out, there are a vast number of chances for this to occur.
I think the SETI project worth pursuing, and have helped out. But I think it would be better if we could find intelligent life here as well.
h |
and incredibly arrogant. Why would they waste all that time and effort to come see us? Please, no references to V, Star Trek, Close Encounter of the Third Kind, Battlestar Galactica, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, or any other scifi story that 40 year-old virgins have been known to obsess about. |
Well, there are humans who travel thousands of miles in horribly uncomfortable ways just to study ant hills in the middle of a tropical forest . I am sure the ants would wonder why the hell they are doing that |
It doesn't even compare.
If an ant weighs 1/2 g and the average adult human weighs 65 kg, then an adult would be 130 000 times the size of an ant. Now, if that person travels 10 000miles to study the ant, then--without considering how much distance the average human and ant travels in a day-- you could say that the distance would be the equivalent of 1300 000 000 miles for the ant. Pluto is 2.67 miles from Earth at its closest. Aliens would have to travel much further than that to reach us.
Once again, we aren't worth the trip. |
The analogy was fine, but you must try to think more out of the box. I don't mean that as an insult, but I can't say it any other way. Who knows they even need to worry about distance, or that they are confined physically to planets like us? |
Don't take this as an insult, but you don't have a point. Simply put, you're using an unprovable hypothesis to argue against a fact. |
I don't want to fight with you. I have no beef with you I just think that to say that aliens won't visit us based solely on reasons that you can percieve on one planet by one race at one technological era is limited. If all theories and ideas were limited to what we already know and no one thought of things that hadn't been thought of or done before, we would probably be farming along with the Amish
But even with your want to remain only with what we know, they have successfully transported a immensely small something (quark? I forget what it was) ala Star Trek. Don't go expecting beaming anytime soon, the test failed a lot of things they were hoping for, but still... Why couldn't aliens have perfected that and just beamed a probe into every solar system they can see. I mean, we can already detect planets around solar systems far away. There is no reason that aliens couldn't be more advanced that us and that it would literally be no problem for them to make a quick trip out here. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 2:38 pm Post subject: |
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| laogaiguk wrote: |
The analogy was fine, but you must try to think more out of the box. I don't mean that as an insult, but I can't say it any other way. Who knows they even need to worry about distance, or that they are confined physically to planets like us? |
We know ants exist. We know how to find ants. they make it easy for us. They come right to us. It's not an amazing claim to state that some people like to find ants to study them. To claim aliens across the vastness of space have found us and have crossed light years to buzz guys in pickup trucks is kind of a rather amazing claim and needs to be backed by some actual evidence. It's possible but would you bet your own money on it? |
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laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
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| Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 4:06 pm Post subject: |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
| laogaiguk wrote: |
The analogy was fine, but you must try to think more out of the box. I don't mean that as an insult, but I can't say it any other way. Who knows they even need to worry about distance, or that they are confined physically to planets like us? |
We know ants exist. We know how to find ants. they make it easy for us. They come right to us. It's not an amazing claim to state that some people like to find ants to study them. To claim aliens across the vastness of space have found us and have crossed light years to buzz guys in pickup trucks is kind of a rather amazing claim and needs to be backed by some actual evidence. It's possible but would you bet your own money on it? |
I didn't say they had anywhere in my posts. You misunderstood. I said that the thought that they wouldn't want to nor would it be worth it to study us is wrong. There is a big difference. I do not believe we have been visited by UFOs who have anally probed a bunch of redneck hicks. I do believe that it wouldn't be difficult to imagine that there are aliens out there who might decide to survey the galaxy and would take the time to atleast study us if not make contact (unless we do it first). Hopefully they won't go the way of the Europeans and the dodo though.
And more importantly, I wish you guys would stop making references to distance, as distance could mean literally nothing to aliens with superior technology or who have evolved past the need for physical travel (the latter being really out there in terms of ideas, but not impossible). Think what people 2000 years ago would think about cell phones. |
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Rteacher
Joined: 23 May 2005
Location: Western MA, USA
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| Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 6:42 pm Post subject: |
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I think that "laogaiguk" is more-or-less right, but he seems to have backed away from the anal probe position...  |
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Antrugha
Joined: 05 Jan 2006
Location: On a 2-wheeled engine
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| Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 6:52 pm Post subject: |
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| laogaiguk wrote: |
And more importantly, I wish you guys would stop making references to distance, as distance could mean literally nothing to aliens with superior technology or who have evolved past the need for physical travel (the latter being really out there in terms of ideas, but not impossible). Think what people 2000 years ago would think about cell phones. |
also, they'll be beings of pure energy and be completely omnipotent and will require nothing less then a single thought to blow up the universe as we know it.
cell phones are a crap analogy compared to the distance of trillions of light years. I don't care about technology or otherworldly means, the universe as we understand it today makes it impossible for us to be able to visit another intelligent life form. I'm not saying that this is an absolute understanding, but we could sit here and claim "what ifs" all day if that's your cup of tea. Hell, I'm sure there's a galaxy like star wars out there if we're doing that. Same goes for star trek. All I'm saying is conjecture gets you nowhere but back to where you started, plus a few ideas for cheesy sci fi novels. |
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Hollywoodaction
Joined: 02 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 7:05 pm Post subject: |
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Anthruga, my point exactly.....
What if the sun is actually a huge lightbulb? What if the universe is in a huge crystal ball. What if... |
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mithridates
Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency
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| Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 7:33 pm Post subject: |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
| laogaiguk wrote: |
The analogy was fine, but you must try to think more out of the box. I don't mean that as an insult, but I can't say it any other way. Who knows they even need to worry about distance, or that they are confined physically to planets like us? |
We know ants exist. We know how to find ants. they make it easy for us. They come right to us. |
Depends on the ant, no? 11,000+ species of ants exist. Some of them you do have to cross vast tracts of land to find.
Lots of thinking inside the box going on in this thread.
| Quote: |
| Conjecture gets you nowhere |
Tell that to this guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2006 7:53 pm Post subject: |
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| laogaiguk wrote: |
And more importantly, I wish you guys would stop making references to distance, as distance could mean literally nothing to aliens with superior technology or who have evolved past the need for physical travel (the latter being really out there in terms of ideas, but not impossible). Think what people 2000 years ago would think about cell phones. |
I would like to think that given enough time, intelligence can figure out a way to cross the void of space faster than light. But if you'd like to claim the problem has been solved by some intelligence, then offer your evidence. Everything else is mere speculation. They used to speculate, 50 years ago, we'd all have Jetson like rocket cars taking us to work. Lots of thing predicted to come true have not. Many things people claimed were impossible have proven to be possible. Neither reality is evidence of the possibility or the impossibility of your case. It begs one to not rule anything out at the same time it begs one to be skeptical until evidence is offered. |
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laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
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| Posted: Tue Dec 19, 2006 2:07 am Post subject: |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
| laogaiguk wrote: |
And more importantly, I wish you guys would stop making references to distance, as distance could mean literally nothing to aliens with superior technology or who have evolved past the need for physical travel (the latter being really out there in terms of ideas, but not impossible). Think what people 2000 years ago would think about cell phones. |
I would like to think that given enough time, intelligence can figure out a way to cross the void of space faster than light. But if you'd like to claim the problem has been solved by some intelligence, then offer your evidence. Everything else is mere speculation. They used to speculate, 50 years ago, we'd all have Jetson like rocket cars taking us to work. Lots of thing predicted to come true have not. Many things people claimed were impossible have proven to be possible. Neither reality is evidence of the possibility or the impossibility of your case. It begs one to not rule anything out at the same time it begs one to be skeptical until evidence is offered. |
Dudes, read my posts again. I am not trying to prove anything. I used language such as "could" and "might". All I am doing is saying that saying "Aliens will never visit us" is wrong. To be honest, it's up to the people who think this to prove it first (very hard to prove such a negative). All I am doing is hypothesising some counter examples, and since the people saying that can't prove their side, there is really no point in me proving mine. THis is just hypothesising. I love exercising my imagination, and was hoping at first this thread might do that. It seems I was mistaken. And luckily for science fiction there are people who do that
And I am with Mithradates. There is no out of the box thinking here, and a whole lot of fortifying the current box kind of thinking here (not directed at mindmetoo). He gave one example. They had ideas first, and later proved them. But to not entertain ideas outside of current knowledge is very dangerous for a society that wants to better itself.
On a side note, this is why even though I usually side with athiests on many issues (as most feel no need to force their opinions on others, unlike a few more religious people), sometimes they can be just as obtuse and close minded as hardcore Christians, and just as dangerous. This is NOT directed at anyone on this thread! |
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laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
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| Posted: Tue Dec 19, 2006 3:29 am Post subject: |
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| Rteacher wrote: |
| I think that "laogaiguk" is more-or-less right, but he seems to have backed away from the anal probe position... |
I am more worried about why that seems to bother you   |
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