Both in terms of popular culture and extensively throughout UFO Belief the concept of Extraterrestrials, Aliens if you will, paints a picture of beings humanoid in aspect, perceived as been driven by motives understandable to humans in human terms - Then there's the other side of the coin. Stanley Kubrick in the film 2001 depicts ETI as singularly undefinable - a presence only disclosing nothing whatsoever regarding its actual nature except that in being present, for want of a better word, apparently it does stuff - even though theirs no real way of understanding anything at all regarding how, what, when and how.

It's a startlingly different portrayal of what the term Alien actually means - So, if you feel prompted to ever use the term at all, what you consider terms such as Aliens, Extraterrestrials, ETI, etc to actually mean?

Alien in the way you are using it means something from outside of the earth's ecosystem. The usual images are that of humanoid forms, as you said, but that is because we always think in terms of ourselves. I can't remember which philosopher said it, but he said "If horses had a god, it would be a horse".

Mmmmm, indeed they do. For as it says in the First Book of Dobbin: "Nay! And it was good." But how about yourself here - how do you perceive the notion of an Alien?

i say not of this earth as well
which very well could then be us humans that are the aliens if one considers the microbe bearing asteroid impact theory

yet
surely an amoeba would be more alien to us than a humanoid from ngc1234

yu know, the human body is a great thing...when you think about it. it is so diverse in movement. forexample, when you see what it can do, regarding sports, and dancing. .....etc. soit would seem t me that this creative design i not just a one-off 'accidental' occurance of planet Earth or for just-us-humans, but is rathewr a creative potentia that can happen all over, and interdimensionally

ie. this is why i keep asking inquirers into this to please be aware of the water you are swimmin in ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
in OUR current pradigm tis 'water' sis the materialistic philsophia which ASSUMES that our presence here on plane t Earth, Earth, solar system etc is err kinda accidental........not accomadating that reality ITSELF isss creaTIVE and most like favours versatile bodies
but also lets not forget that in certain 'dimensions' said bodies can SHAPESHIFT

oooh
odo

Alien Lifeforms

Definition: As LilLightFoot succinctly put it, lifeforms from outwith our eco-system.*

Points to Consider

1. It is probable that, as on the Earth, most lifeforms will be microscopic.
2. In consequence most alien lifeforms will be neither sapient or sentient.
3. Our ability to recognise lifeforms may be hampered by terracentrism.
4. We do not yet know enough about the origin of life to know if organic lifeforms will utilise DNA, something very close to it, or something quite different.
5. Since external form has only a passing relationship to genetic heritage we may expect some analogs of terrrestrial creatures amongst any metazoans.
6. Since we have only recently recognised that there are five Kingdoms of life, we should not be surprised to encounter several more.
7. The possibilities of non-organic life should not be ignored.
8. The most probable form of such life would be AIs created by earlier organic beings.


*If localised panspemia is shown to be in effect within the solar system, then we just have to modify our to include the entire system, not just the Earth.

Alien in the way you are using it means something from outside of the earth's ecosystem. The usual images are that of humanoid forms, as you said, but that is because we always think in terms of ourselves. I can't remember which philosopher said it, but he said "If horses had a god, it would be a horse".
Let's assume an alien colony of single cell bacteria makes it to Earth. The colony starts to grow in one of Earth's ecosystems. Are the newly formed bacteria still alien? They have alien ancestors, but were produced on Earth and will be submissive to its environmental pressures. And that influence will weigh stronger and stronger over time: every following generation of those bacteria will be culled by Earth's standards.

In short, their "alienness'" would fade rapidly, but where would one place the border line?

Let's assume an alien colony of single cell bacteria makes it to Earth. The colony starts to grow in one of Earth's ecosystems. Are the newly formed bacteria still alien?You are assuming they are DNA lifeforms making proteins from the same twenty amino acids Earth life does and has the same codons in its DNA. That is quite an assumption. If it is invalid, which is highly likely, then it will always be obvious that it is alien.

So, if you feel prompted to ever use the term at all, what you consider terms such as Aliens, Extraterrestrials, ETI, etc to actually mean?
alien, something foreign, not like us
god is an alien

You are assuming they are DNA lifeforms making proteins from the same twenty amino acids Earth life does and has the same codons in its DNA. That is quite an assumption. If it is invalid, which is highly likely, then it will always be obvious that it is alien.

Although, I presume, due to the underlying chemistry, an 'alien' will have a similar underpinning structure, to something like our DNA. A chemical degeneracy if you will. Certain reactions are favourable, the lifeform will almost certainly be carbon based, and utilise oxygen, and probably iron (although copper is used for a blood base by creatures on earth, so no reason for aliens not to use it too.).

Likewise, physically, they have the same forces to deal with as us, so may have eyes, similar to earth creatures (be they like ours, or those of crustaceans), or use sonar, so will have some familiar features.

I guess also that similar selection criteria will have applied, and that the being most likely to become space faring will be that planets Apex predator, so that means the ability to communicate, a developed brain, dexterous appendages, and good senses. I don't know if being bipedal is necessary, but not using the manipulative appendages for movement is a must I think, so they become more subtle in their range of movement.

So they could be green sonar using octopi, but it shouldn't be such a surprise to us.

Anyway, to answer the original questions,

Aliens, life form not from this planet.
Extra Terrestrial, same, but maybe with the implication that they are on earth, as earth is mentioned.
ETI, Intelligent life form, perhaps afar, contaced by some means, but not necessarily physically.

What pisses me off, is not that intelligent alien species are depicted as humanoid necessarily, it's that they are always depicted in the same way! The Gray has seemingly taken over the world of science fiction, so that in any film or tv programme - and there are a lot of them - which features humans meeting aliens for the first time, they always have the same characteristics - hairless with large black eyeballs behind tapered oval eyelids, generally pale skin, very very thin arms, legs and digits, no nose and a small mouth. When Steven Spielberg made Taken, I was looking forward to seeing what the aliens looked like, given that the Gray as we now have it first appeared in Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and when he returned to Alien Visitation with E.T. it looked totally different. But no, right at the end of the first episode, there was the bog-standard Gray. When M. Night Shyamalan made Signs, I was agog to watch a return to genuine hidden-alien creepiness. But then we saw one, and, dark green or not, it was a Gray. Actually, the first one we saw (the kiddy party home video) looked like nothing more or less than a guy walking past in one of those Alien costumes you get from a fancy dress shop.

I rate CE3K very highly at being one of the very few Human/Alien Encounter movies that genuinely gave us something original and intelligent, unfortunately it also appears to have torpedoed everybody's imagination.

If it is invalid, which is highly likely
You are right. Could you agree to "an alien lifeform of the same relative complexity as a simple bacterium"?

then it will always be obvious that it is alien.
With a recognizable alien origin, true, but exposed to Earth's constrains and forced to evolve in a direction adapted to those constrains. Over time, the resulting generations may be entirely different from what would have evolved on the alien lifeform's habitat which spawned their ancestors.

I remember you as a proponent of panspermia, which, correct me if I'm wrong, hypothesizes that the seeds of life may have been brought to earth. Now, if panspermia was a kickstart for life on earth, does that then imply all of us are to be characterised as alien?

*If localised panspemia is shown to be in effect within the solar system, then we just have to modify our to include the entire system, not just the Earth.
Ah, sorry for having missed this the first time around. It answers my last question in my previous post.

Yes, I am a proponent of panspermia, but was discounting it for the purposes of this discussion - since if there is universal panspermia there are no aliens.

My point on the alien bacteria like entity, is that its internal chemistry will be different - if it is not, then frankly it is not an alien. The differences are likely to be such that it is going to be very hard for it to 'make a living' on the Earth, though on the plus side it will not likely be too attractive to eat.
It occurs to me that when we land up on alien planets to colonise them we are going to require genetically engineered bacteria in our digestive tract to convert the inedible alien plant/animal/weird purple thingies to nutritious chemicals our body can handle.

An alien life form would be one that cannot be fitted in the current 'tree of life'. That is that no connection of ancestry can be made with any lifeform on earth which are all connected.

oooh
odo

Well. May you persist, my dear Gustav. You alone deserve the hooplah, and so does Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach.

Both god-like personas in their own rights! ;)

Weep about it, the rest of ye who make not the cut.

F*** ye all!

Voi ringrazio!

As LilLightFoot succinctly put it, lifeforms from outwith our eco-system.*

you lie. that was not how he put it. he said "...something from outside of the earth's ecosystem."

1. It is probable that, as on the Earth, most lifeforms will be microscopic.
2. In consequence most alien lifeforms will be neither sapient or sentient.

an assumption that could only be made in the fog of confusion and mindless arrogance

3. Our ability to recognise lifeforms may be hampered by terracentrism.

the height of idiocy. terracentrism does not imply that we do not recognize lifeforms. it is just that we accord them a secondary or inferior status. it is the criteria that is used to define life that is in question. take away the requirement of autonomous replication and a virus could then, said to be alive

5. Since external form has only a passing relationship to genetic heritage we may expect some analogs of terrrestrial creatures amongst any metazoans.

garbage spouted out in a excellent example of pseudoscientific quackery. muddled verbiage that could only result from a mediocre and addled thought process aka random firings of neurons being put into words

skin color is genetic coding. the 4 limbs attached to humans is also a result of the same. "passing relationship" my ass!

now regarding the "analogs". what the fuck is being said here? we should expect that....animals are animals? insects are animals? microbes are animals? i recommend death

6. Since we have only recently recognised that there are five Kingdoms of life, we should not be surprised to encounter several more.
7. The possibilities of non-organic life should not be ignored.
8. The most probable form of such life would be AIs created by earlier organic beings.
*If localised panspemia is shown to be in effect within the solar system, then we just have to modify our to include the entire system, not just the Earth

i suppose stating the obvious is one way to pretend intellect
pathetic tho

panspemia

is it too much of an effort to even spell correctly?

Gustav:

Please stop baiting Ophiolite.

James R, I have not been reading reading Gustav's infantile ramblings for some time. Please allow him to continue them. They may provide passing amusement for other posters and will certainly acquaint new members with the depth (used in the loosest sense) of his character (used in the very loosest sense).

I do ask others, should they notice some point made by Gustav that by a statistical freak has some validity, please duplicate it here, so that I may respond to it.

Very sporting of you Ophiolite

Gustav:

Please stop baiting Ophiolite.

please show me how the points i raised are not valid
what you are asking me to do is to allow his pronouncements to go unchallenged

you characterize as bait
i characterize as a rebuttal
please just show me the errors in my interpretation of his statements
i will then acknowledge with a clarification or admission of error if you do so to my satisfaction

if i have an opinion on just what type of individual would raise such points, i do not see why i cannot mention it.

i do not see your role as a nanny in this forum so please stop babysitting adults. allow me to demonstrate the type of individual you protect......

Conjecture. Idle speculation. Brain vomit. These are the main contenders.

If you can't be bothered to write in structured manner, why the **** should I be bothered to read it. Edit the bloody thing.

Don't talk crap. If you are going to be a rude, inconsiderate asshole, who can't take a moment or to to properly formulate their thoughts, I rather doubt those thoughts are of much particular value.

In fact, I just spent ten minutes wading through your prose, correcting the spelling, amending the grammar, and giving it some structure. I just came back to post it from Word and found the above waiting me. So, go fly a kite, sonny, and hang your philosophy off the end of it.

Your answers with ambiguous, illogical, inconsistent and either hypocritical or foolish. I thought you would appreciate a second chance.

If you can't be bothered to write in structured manner, why the **** should I be bothered to read it. Edit the bloody thing.

Differences between people, between individuals, not differences between races. You are a fixated moron JB. TofR has clearly stated and demonstrated this is what she means, but you are so hung up on there being significant differences between these so called races that you imagine everyone else is obsessed with them and is talking about them.

Have you actually contributed anything of value to any of these forums ever? Give us a list. It shouldn't take very long to compile.

You do know that it's people like you who give assholes a bad name, right?

Detailed citations, or retract, please.

You fail to take into account that a flawed, vulnerable personality such as Gustav, gifted with some native intellect and animal deviousness, is quite capable of creating a superficially antithetical character.
The similarities and inter-relationships between Gustav and c7 are so obvious, and have been so for some time, yet no one has commented on them before. This makes me half suspect that Gustav has prompted Gia to 'blow the whistle' because nobody was reacting. This would be wholly consistent with Gustav's modus operandi of using people.

all but the last addressed to others

i am at a loss why you would protect this kind of obvious hypocrisy. it actually kinda blows my mind cos i thought i had at least a little measure of your smarts and integrity. you disappoint, james. and i am saddened ;)

I do ask others, should they notice some point made by Gustav that by a statistical freak has some validity, please duplicate it here, so that I may respond to it.

do not fucking buy into this crap. i have moved in and out of oafy's ignore list.
he is obsessed and has to eventually read. it is a compulsion and more fool you all if you actually believe that he has not read my posts

go on
look into the history
see him vow to ignore
then promply post a reply

trust me
he clicks to expand

now jamesr

lets compare oafys quoted text to the post in question...

*you lie.

*an assumption that could only be made in the fog of confusion and mindless arrogance

*the height of idiocy.

*garbage spouted out in a excellent example of pseudoscientific quackery. muddled verbiage that could only result from a mediocre and addled thought process aka random firings of neurons being put into words

*my ass!

*i recommend death

*i suppose stating the obvious is one way to pretend intellect
pathetic tho

*is it too much of an effort to even spell correctly?

fairly similar, ja? intent? vein?
i merely speak in a language ophiolite is familiar with
ja, i am nice that way :)

Very sporting of you OphioliteThink nothing of it. ;)

..........will certainly acquaint new members with the depth (used in the loosest sense) of his character (used in the very loosest sense).

i am familiar with the rabid attitude shown by this joker towards posters in general
look at some members comment on the oafys methods and character.........


if we are going to be the grammar police, ill be watching closely from now on to deride anyone that doesnt write the way i prefer.

if you are so concerned with religious people not living up to your standards of interests....why dont you take on the job of educating them in a fashion other than "you are stupid. i am smart." i mean...if its that important to someone to take time from their life to make negative statements about people that dont share their interest, it must really bother that person.......why not educate, instead of ridicule?

im sure we can learn alot from your "all knowing" position.

Well honed rhetorical devices? i think youre setting new standards in self-delusion. You could have made a far better better post by discussing the body of work itself and your opinions on it rather than wasting your own time on thinly-veiled inflammatory remarks.
Im pretty sure at this point youre just trolling, if you believe debating is a two way battle in which people put each other 'in their place' then i think our ideas of debating probably arnt compatible.

where were you, jamesr?
pointedly looking the other way? ;)

I do ask others, should they notice some point made by Gustav that by a statistical freak has some validity, please duplicate it here, so that I may respond to it.

this request is blindingly pathological
it totally defeats the point of the ignore list

it reminds me of a scene in stern's movie, private parts

*listeners who liked him tuned for an average of 2 hrs, reason was ..."i wanna see what he is going to say next"
*listeners who hated him tuned for an average of 4 hrs, reason was ..."i wanna see what he is going to say next"

so predictable
like an animal

RIGhT ON Gustav.....i also dont know why you was previously picked on and banned, and why you have gin been singled out. cnsidering how everyone else seems o be able to say more or less what they like in debate---specially the pathological skeptics whose middle name seems to by frothing ad hom.....riiiiight oooooon!

you see Gustav, I know cause i can see. you have a way andmeans of deflating pompus arses. exposing their rhetoric, an pretensions.....haha, i LOVE it----
this is EXACTLY why you piss em off!!!!!!!!!----- and i really value your contributions here

I love you too.

I love you too.
not about love nd hate...jest tellin it like it iss bubuu

Both in terms of popular culture and extensively throughout UFO Belief the concept of Extraterrestrials, Aliens if you will, paints a picture of beings humanoid in aspect, perceived as been driven by motives understandable to humans in human terms - Then there's the other side of the coin. Stanley Kubrick in the film 2001 depicts ETI as singularly undefinable - a presence only disclosing nothing whatsoever regarding its actual nature except that in being present, for want of a better word, apparently it does stuff - even though theirs no real way of understanding anything at all regarding how, what, when and how.

It's a startlingly different portrayal of what the term Alien actually means - So, if you feel prompted to ever use the term at all, what you consider terms such as Aliens, Extraterrestrials, ETI, etc to actually mean?

pardon, but i do not see an avoidance to define as a "..startlingly different portrayal.." if someone has an opinion on xyz, another says "no comment," how is the latter, a "..startlingly different portrayal..?"

nothing is being said according to you, yet you allege an alternate viewpoint has been presented

why?

An alien life form would be one that cannot be fitted in the current 'tree of life'. That is that no connection of ancestry can be made with any lifeform on earth which are all connected.

i believe this is the best definition of alien offered up so far. it is a strict interpretation of the term.

my verdict? spurious is decisive, the rest of us fumble

An alien life form would be one that cannot be fitted in the current 'tree of life'. That is that no connection of ancestry can be made with any lifeform on earth which are all connected.
dont know what you mean by the 'CURRENT' tree of life?
the ancient motif of the Tree of Life includes, Underworld, this Earth, and Cosmos......ALL connected!

pardon, but i do not see an avoidance to define as a "..startlingly different portrayal.." if someone has an opinion on xyz, another says "no comment," how is the latter, a "..startlingly different portrayal..?"

nothing is being said according to you, yet you allege an alternate viewpoint has been presented

why?

Simply because I don't in the slightest in describing the Black Monolith in 2001 as "singularly undefinable - a presence only disclosing nothing whatsoever regarding its actual nature except that in being present, for want of a better word, apparently it does stuff - even though theirs no real way of understanding anything at all regarding how, what, when and how." in so stating state at all that that "nothing is being said" about the concept of ETI or Aliens on the part of either myself, Stanley Kubrick or indeed Arthur C Clarke.

Terms such as "no comment" and "nothing is being said" are your conclusions here exclusively Gustav, not in the slightest mine.

In portraying the ETI presence in 2001 as being discernible as Black Monoliths only actually both Clarke and Kubrick are speaking volumes when it comes to the concept of what the word Alien (in the context of the portrayal of extraterrestrial life) actually means - simply put they're telling you, if it's genuinely Alien, y'can't tell exactly what it is or anything much else about it at all simply by looking at the thing and going on either what it reminds you of, or what you can aliken the thing too, based on your experience.

When it comes to the term alien you have no previous point of refference. You actually have no actual context to put the thing in other than whatever the thing is it didn't originate on this world and this, in 2001, Kubrick rather cleverly imparts not by anything either stated or particularly done on the part of the Monoliths themselves, but where we (the audience), mankind in the movie and the creatures that precursed mankind at the very beginning of the film first encounter these.....

What, exactly? Throughout the entire course of the film we're never left any the wiser regarding what these things actually are. They remain alien throughout, not just merely as a description (they have a description, Black Monoliths) but the concept of what it is alien actually means:

I. Don't. Know. What. It. Actually. Is.

And this is conveyed in 2001 visually with a degree of economy few if any in popular culture have ever managed to achieve either before or since. It's the complete antithesis of how the idea of aliens are portrayed throughout the rest of that, from Close Encounters of the Third Kind to Attack of The Saucermen! and to me, personally, when I think of what the term Alien means to me: I think of the Monolith from 2001.

Not the form, but the concept.

Of course, I had rather thought simply by terming 2001 as "the other side of the coin" when juxtaposed with the previous "Both in terms of popular culture and extensively throughout UFO Belief the concept of Extraterrestrials, Aliens if you will, paints a picture of beings humanoid in aspect, perceived as been driven by motives understandable to humans in human terms" that I had managed to impart something of all that over - however, should any misunderstanding remain regarding that, thank you for giving me the opportunity of clearing that up.

All the best,

A ;)

bah, i just nitpicked
apologies for putting you thru that tho the clarification was an excellent read

/lost in admiration

ps: the monolith subsequently did turn out to be a whole lotta stuff tho, ja?

:) .... Somewhat, yes. I've never really been all that much of a fan of Arthur C Clarke's, consequently I'm only able to go at it from what I've read of other novels he's written along similar lines of ETI Contact and what happened in in 2010, but I gather the Monoliths themselves transpire to be more the emissaries and custodians of some distant alien intelligence rather than actual lifeforms themselves - the big Monolith discovered orbiting Jupiter turns out to contain an artificial wormhole of sorts facilitating two way travel and the Monoliths themselves appear en mass during the denumont of 2010 and transform Jupiter itself from the failed pro-star it actually is into the actual thing itself, thus facilitating habitable living conditions on one of Jupiter's moons Ganymede for something the Monoliths have seeded there....

Thus the tendency of viewing the things leans towards mechanisms of some description or other but that only comes about through hindsight after the fact, 2001, as it were.

Personally, for me, the subsequent developments in the plot only render the series of novels just another sci-fi story - aliens doing things for discernible reasons understandable as such in human terms - kind of takes away the whole set-up Clarke and Kubrick established with collaborating together so fully on 2001 - but ultimately Clarke's just another human being speculating on the greater mystery and all that...

The God of Horses turns out to be just a really, really big Horse after all, just like the rest of us. Hey, who knew?

But up until that point either one or the other of them, Kubrick or Clarke, managed to hit upon both visually and conceptually that whole idea of what the word Alien in terms of ETI actually means - I actually haven't the first fuck, frankly, what it is.

And for that alone you've got to give that movie its props, while it lasts.

Even though its own author forgets his own basic tenant not so much as half a book later, ultimately that forgetting or else just simply ignoring in itself turns out to inform us in quite a lot about the sorts of concepts we as a species remain somewhat prone too - on the one hand we have the intelligence to be able to perceive the possibilities of life alien completely to this our own world - but we can't get an adequate purchase intellectually speaking on what we don't have any form of personal reference to thus our speculations remain those of what we can speculate upon.

Ourselves, what we might do were positions actually reversed.

In essence, we banish the possibility of anything actually alien existing in our concept of ETI - we envision it as being different only and term it alien as a consequence of that perceived difference, not necessarily at all actually what the term alien itself actually means.

Just what we tend to think. Or believe. Or possibly both. ;)

PS: No worries about putting me through the clarification thing G, just sorry I never shut the fuck up once someone gets me started....

A :)

hmm
"there are stranger things in life that could be ever imagined in your dreams." (i cannot nail down the similar quote)

so far, the term alien has been mostly(?) negatively characterized aka what it is not. is it fair on us humans to keep an actual definition out of reach. for instance at the moment of conceptualization, it ceases to be alien? perhaps fallacious reasoning here? a trap of our own making?

is that what is going on?

i actually went to see 2001 Space Oddity at a cinema in London, trippin outta my head on good LSD when 15. i can rememberit well....at points in this film i became MORE interested in thwe AUDIENCE watching the film....

you know, formany many people the deeper part of themselves is 'alien'..!!!

"there are stranger things in life that could be ever imagined in your dreams." (i cannot nail down the similar quote
)
Could it be Shakespeare's Hamlet -
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy”


This seemed kind of apt:
"The four points of the compass are logic, knowledge, wisdom, and the unknown. Some do bow in that final direction. Others advance upon it. To bow before the one is to lose sight of the three. I may submit to the unknown, but never to the unknowable."
Roger Zelazny
Lord of Light

duendy

heh
like the rastafarian's "i and i"

but of course, until someone nails down the neural correlates for consciousness, i am gonna go with the "knowledge" that i am distinct and ultimately separate from this biological mass i seemingly inhabit. what i am, i havent a real clue, just various philosophical speculations

there can be no other way (i think)
cos i aint no fucking zombie ;)

Could it be Shakespeare's Hamlet -
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy”


This seemed kind of apt:
"The four points of the compass are logic, knowledge, wisdom, and the unknown. Some do bow in that final direction. Others advance upon it. To bow before the one is to lose sight of the three. I may submit to the unknown, but never to the unknowable."
Roger Zelazny
Lord of Light

beautiful and spot on :D

ps: i focus on the......"I may submit to the unknown, but never to the unknowable." (zelazny), ignoring the other pronouncements as thinking is hard work

hmm
zelazny's "aptness" could possibly be debunked.

hmm
zelazny's "aptness" could possibly be debunked.
Probably. It's just meant to be more 'feel' than 'fact'.

dont know what you mean by the 'CURRENT' tree of life?
the ancient motif of the Tree of Life includes, Underworld, this Earth, and Cosmos......ALL connected!

yes you do
you also know that one is factual while the other is speculative
go on
acknowledge the monkey's context

duendy

heh
like the rastafarian's "i and i"

mee))))no. cause they them read the maccabee biBIL and i dont agree wid it mon. they mean their idea of 'God' as 'I'. i am not meaning that, but more 'theunconcsious' ala Lancelot Whyte type ting

but of course, until someone nails down the neural correlates for consciousness, i am gonna go with the "knowledge" that i am distinct and ultimately separate from this biological mass i seemingly inhabit. what i am, i havent a real clue, just various philosophical speculations

me))))good to know

there can be no other way (i think)
cos i aint no fucking zombie ;)
not namin names.................
hmmmmwhat IS tis 'other' ...? to the racist it's the 'Black' the 'Jew' etc......

mee))))no. cause they them read the maccabee biBIL and i dont agree wid it mon. they mean their idea of 'God' as 'I'. i am not meaning that, but more 'theunconcsious' ala Lancelot Whyte type ting

i think you are right with the rasta def. i guess i held it to refer to the mind/body dichotomy

look at that, duendy
we are actually conversing

/cackle

look at that, duendy
we are actually conversing

/cackle
hehehe i knooow

LOL. Nice.

hmm
"there are stranger things in life that could be ever imagined in your dreams." (i cannot nail down the similar quote)

so far, the term alien has been mostly(?) negatively characterized aka what it is not. is it fair on us humans to keep an actual definition out of reach. for instance at the moment of conceptualization, it ceases to be alien? perhaps fallacious reasoning here? a trap of our own making?

is that what is going on?

Kind of gets impossible to make that kind of determination - in order to actually know, you'd need the point of comparison to hand - an alien. Without which all one has is speculation of the human variety. The good, the bad, the crashingly awful. Problem being, without the actual point of comparison by which to weigh ones speculations against, an alien, one can't know whether or not ones speculations are either in the ball park, close or not even worth making the pitch.

It's why I leave the topic open to ones own personal interpretation of what the word means. There fundamentally aren't any right or wrong answers. Just what people think.

put it thisa way....are not all planets. stars, moons of a spherical shape?....dont they have massively powerful telescopes that show this? and we have gallaxies, diverse but still forming spirals etc

so what i mean is is that say we didn't have tis technology, we COULDimagine planets shaped different tan sphere, and gallaxies different etc

well, these formations create themaelves for the best possibole way of being for what is needed to be

so likewise our humanoid and animal forms also .....?

As LilLightFoot succinctly put it, lifeforms from outwith our eco-system.*
you lie. that was not how he put it. he said "...something from outside of the earth's ecosystem."Well, calling Ophiolite a liar for a semantic difference is a little extreme, I think.
1. It is probable that, as on the Earth, most lifeforms will be microscopic.
2. In consequence most alien lifeforms will be neither sapient or sentient.
an assumption that could only be made in the fog of confusion and mindless arroganceNot really - surely it's a basically patently obvious fact. If we look at the Universe as a whole, the population of a particular type of object is inversely proportional to its relative size, so that there are uncounted trillions of grains of sand/dust, but only a few thousand supergiant stars. Looking at life on Earth, the same is seen to apply - trillions of invisible-to-the-naked-eye lifeforms, but only a few elephants, or trillions of species of microscopic lifeforms, but only three or four very large land mammals - elephant, rhino, hippo. There's no reason whatsoever to believe that that rule would be different for alien life. But it was possibly a pedantic point to make, yes, the vast majority of lifeforms in the Universe as a whole are not sapient.


3. Our ability to recognise lifeforms may be hampered by terracentrism.
the height of idiocy. terracentrism does not imply that we do not recognize lifeforms. it is just that we accord them a secondary or inferior status. it is the criteria that is used to define life that is in question. take away the requirement of autonomous replication and a virus could then, said to be alive I think you completely misunderstood what Ophiolite was saying at this point, and that in fact you probably would find you and he agree on this point. Terracentrism would hamper us from seeing a non-carbon lifeform, a non-water based lifeform, a non-DNA based lifeform, if their mode of life was so substantially different from our own. Arthur C. Clarke (I'm sorry, Mr. Anonymous, but I absolutely cannot join you on the side of thinking Clarke to be somewhat meh, his explorations of the cosmos have always been amongst the most imaginative) postulated a lifeform consisting of coherent energy that lived in the atmosphere of the Sun. Not recognising that as a lifeform would be "terracentrism" of the almost natural form of only thinking about sapient life with respect to planets that consist of solid rock, oceans of liquid water and an atmosphere of volatiles. Maybe there are aliens only 93 million miles away!
5. Since external form has only a passing relationship to genetic heritage we may expect some analogs of terrrestrial creatures amongst any metazoans.
garbage spouted out in a excellent example of pseudoscientific quackery. muddled verbiage that could only result from a mediocre and addled thought process aka random firings of neurons being put into wordsSee, now you just insult for the hell of it, so I'll stop commenting on this particular post.

Gustav,
garbage spouted out in a excellent example of pseudoscientific quackery. muddled verbiage that could only result from a mediocre and addled thought process aka random firings of neurons being put into words
You seem to be an intelligent person so I assume the ignorance displayed in your post is deliberate. Ophiolite said:
5. Since external form has only a passing relationship to genetic heritage we may expect some analogs of terrrestrial creatures amongst any metazoans.
I believe that he is referring to the phenomenon of convergent evolution, exemplified nicely by the shared body morphology of dolphins, sharks and ichthyosaurs. I also believe that you knew this and that you were just trying to score points. Am I right?

laika

appearances can deceive and i have large gaps my knowledge; convergent evolution being one of them. reading up on it briefly puts oafy's post in a new light.

an alien may look like a human while having different insides etc

the first point is a good one. moving on to the latter half..."analogs of terrrestrial creatures amongst any metazoans. (ophiolite)" care to explain that? in a post titled "alien lifeforms?"

are not some terrestrial (earth based) creatures, metazoan? a classification that was created to catergorize certain organisms of this planet that evolved from a single ancestor, again from this planet?

so if a terrestrial creature is a monkey, that monkey is analogous to a metazoan that is a monkey. it is redundant

perhaps he meant to say alien rather than metazoan?

i am aghast if i am responsible for the..."disenchanted former member" thing.
i must make amends.
i think

I think you completely misunderstood what Ophiolite was saying at this point, and that in fact you probably would find you and he agree on this point. Terracentrism would hamper us from seeing a non-carbon lifeform, a non-water based lifeform, a non-DNA based lifeform, if their mode of life was so substantially different from our own.

cite your definition of the term please

Well, calling Ophiolite a liar for a semantic difference is a little extreme, I think.

well, of course it is.

Not really -

i think the terms sapient and sentience, what constitutes them and to whom or what they are ascribed to are still being debated philosophically. there could be at least some form of sentience in these microorganisms tho sapience does seem very unlikely

therefor oafy is being a bit arrogant tho most probably correct in his assessment

put it thisa way....are not all planets. stars, moons of a spherical shape?....dont they have massively powerful telescopes that show this? and we have gallaxies, diverse but still forming spirals etc

so what i mean is is that say we didn't have tis technology, we COULDimagine planets shaped different tan sphere, and gallaxies different etc

well, these formations create themaelves for the best possibole way of being for what is needed to be

so likewise our humanoid and animal forms also .....?

As I said d, we can imagine all sorts of things, and often we do. But to know you're right you need the point in comparison, the alien, to know you're right. The example you give is a perfect example of this - the cosmos as we understand it today doesn't appear at all as previous generations presumed it would - they imagined other solar systems with planets orbiting their respective stars long before anyone ever so much as detected a single one - perfectly true. But what astronomers actually discovered confounded prediction - no one expected to find Jupiter class planets for example orbiting in close proximity to their respective stars. Pegasus 51, one of the first such extra solar system planets to be detected proved to be this exact case - and that threw everyone. No one expected it. Nothing in the make-up of this solar system dictated that the discovery made would infact prove to be the case.

That's the essential difference between imagination, speculation and what actually is - things very often don't actually conform to expectation and without ascertaining an actual point in comparison we'd still be assuming solar systems the galaxy over give rise to replications along the lines of our particular neck of the woods rather than actually being their own thing.

How they actually are, not how we thought them.

(I'm sorry, Mr. Anonymous, but I absolutely cannot join you on the side of thinking Clarke to be somewhat meh, his explorations of the cosmos have always been amongst the most imaginative)

:) ... Its a fair comment Silas, ones own choice of reading material should remain ones own personal choice and there remains neither right nor wrong about it. Personally, I much prefer ponderers such as John Wyndham, hell even HP Lovecraft if we're talking fiction - it's just as an author, Clarke for me I find a tad ponderous, a tad "Ooooo, I never saw that coming" :rolleyes:, y'know? Cleaver chap and all that, perhaps if he simply allowed himself think outside the box more often I'd like him more often. His sociological musings I often find perfectly bang on the mark but the whole thing with being "The Father of Modern Telecommunications", etc heaps a shit load of baggage on the man as an author he could possible do with the odd day off from.

Literature, personal taste. What can y'do.... (shrug)

i get the impression mr A, tho i might be wrong. that i am somehow anti-science. but i am not. i get a hrill out of seeing Hubble Space photies like proabably you do. but you see, and i honestly am not braggin. you are free to do tis yourself, like i am free to llok at space thru a hubble telescope(?)---so dont say eyes cumin on like aholoy dude who claimes to know and you dont game..........yo aint seen the universe after imbibing a psychedelic sacrament ...have you?

....'sorry' meant to say 'that ytou think i am anti-science'...i am anti positivist materialistic science

Actually d, I was merely just addressing your previous comment. As to that latter regarding: yo aint seen the universe after imbibing a psychedelic sacrament ...have you?
:) .... duendy, do you honestly think for one second you're really the only person in these forums who's ever dropped acid, puffed a spliff or did a pot of mushies - seriously? I mean, dear God - what age group is it y'think your talking too here? That's just... hysterical.

Sorry, but it is. Really.

Dear, I wish we had some better smiles around here.... Priceless! :)

Actually d, I was merely just addressing your previous comment. As to that latter regarding:
:) .... duendy, do you honestly think for one second you're really the only person in these forums who's ever dropped acid, puffed a spliff or did a pot of mushies - seriously? I mean, dear God - what age group is it y'think your talking too here? That's just... hysterical.

Sorry, but it is. Really.

Dear, I wish we had some better smiles around here.... Priceless! :)
No, sorry, your incredulity, doesn't wash wid me. i have found out by confession and using savy that quite a lot of people at tese boards dont seem to be 'experienced'----in fact i am also in pm contact wit a member who seems very ANTI psychedelics etc. so no need to go all like that with me. i just asked you.
ALSO, i have found te ones who do admit to having had psychedelic experence here, seem to underestimate the experiences as being nothin more that yet more materialistic goings on

but thePOINT i was making issss. i can accomadate scientific knowledge, but also experiential insight as gotten from psychedelic experience and other deep experiences. whilst i VERY much notice the materialist advocates seem not able to. how their knickers get in knots at the mere mention of anything their microscopes and/or telescopes cantt see, or they cant measure.
so...Mr A. what was you LAST Tryp liketen? qhat was it? how long ago? what insights did you receive?

perhaps if he simply allowed himself think outside the box more often I'd like him more often.Arthur C. Clarke made the box!! :D ;)

.... what insights did you receive?
That it's your brain that does all the actually interesting stuff, the substance, whatever it may be, only ever coaxes your mind into thinking a certain way - it doesn't provide the actual thoughts itself, just shows you your mind can work these ways do these kinds of things.

Once you realise that you realise equally you don't need the substance - just your mind.

The rest is non of your damn business. :)

Arthur C. Clarke made the box!!
Yes. He did kind of didn't he. That's possibly where half the problem lies... ;)

That it's your brain that does all the actually interesting stuff, the substance, whatever it may be, only ever coaxes your mind into thinking a certain way - it doesn't provide the actual thoughts itself, just shows you your mind can work these ways do these kinds of things.

me))great insight. ie., as in 'trigger' and as Stanislv Grof terms LSD as a 'non-specific catalyst'

Once you realise that you realise equally you don't need the substance - just your mind.

me)))))ahhhhaaaaa a 'hang the phone up once you've got the message' attitude hey?
not so Indigenously and primally. for our ancestors thes sacraments were CONTINUALLY taken on sacred communal occasions. itis a Eastern influenced Western idea that one shoul take em and then go meditate to achieve 'similar state' etc. Ram Dass for instance had that attitude. think he has changed his mind since

The rest is non of your damn business. :)

me))))))how veeeery daaaaAAARE yu!


Yes. He did kind of didn't he. That's possibly where half the problem lies... ;)
)()( ())) *((((pp((*

Duendy, sorry it's off-topic but can you give any specific examples of great scientific insights that were arrived at by the use of hallucinogenic substances?

Einstein had to be on something. :eek: Oh, ya, time is relative!

i await responses from both silas and laika ;)

how veeeery daaaaAAARE yu!
I most certainly very do!
for our ancestors thes sacraments were CONTINUALLY taken on sacred communal occasions
And have you never noticed, those societies which allowed themselves to be governed by mystical communication with the great one-ness of the Universe, or however one wishes to term it, through such customs disappeared resolutely and completely right up Histories backside, never to be seen again...

Patently, there'd be no possible kind of lesson in any of that.

I most certainly very do!

And have you never noticed, those societies which allowed themselves to be governed by mystical communication with the great one-ness of the Universe, or however one wishes to term it, through such customs disappeared resolutely and completely right up Histories backside, never to be seen again...

Patently, there'd be no possible kind of lesson in any of that. .

i aee. so you judge a people by how agressive they is?....so you must LOVE the grand old US of A...?

notme. i see it like this:

warrior culture versus psychedelic culture.

This is seen as what happened in history and continues. the warrior culture determined on self-destruct and draggin the rest of 'us' with them, including Nature!

i aee.

what

so you judge a people by how agressive they is?


yes.

....so you must LOVE the grand old US of A...?


no.

This is seen as what happened in history and continues. the warrior culture determined on self-destruct and draggin the rest of 'us' with them, including Nature!

who care, the point is, aliens exist, i saw a small gray one today in my room it was really cute

What the hell are you talking about, c7ityi???

I once saw a small "gray one" in my room. It was really a cat. And kinda fat. It was really cute.
He's dead now. :(

How veeeery daaaaAAARE yu! :mad: :) :rolleyes:

i aee. so you judge a people by how agressive they is?....so you must LOVE the grand old US of A...?
d, have to be perfectly honest, although I'm perfectly down with C7ity here and just want to actually respond - "wha?!" :bugeye:

I'm going to settle for the following instead.

The Mayans, The Aztecs - these were cultures driven by religious autocracy who imbibed as part of their rituals peyote as well as other hallucinogenics. They perceived as part of their rituals Gods who demanded human sacrifice - not excluding children. This isn't western propaganda - the remains are archaeological record, mummies of girls not yet old enough to be yet women, skulls staved in with rocks, bodies used as altar pieces for insane, drug induced beliefs. The offering of hearts to the Heavens - neither myth nor propaganda equally. They revelled in the practice and carved the truth of the matter pictorially into rock as a point of pride.

Are you trying to tell us here these were passive, childlike innocents slaughtered without conscience by the Conquistadors - because they were, but they weren't what you'd term treehuggers or in the slightest childlike exactly either.

You seem to have this absurd, romanticised notion that drug controlled culture only defines small tribes of peoples venerating the Universe coexistent in peaceful shamanic belief - massive, murderous, civilisations grew up out of some of these exact same dalliances and bought forth carnage as well as technological innovation in disproportionate measure - they died out. The civilisations, the beliefs. Straight up Histories backside where they belonged - yet murderously nuts psudomystical belief for you is a sociological good thing, yes? A truth, a fundamental key to unlocking the Universe...

d, you were asking me how much "experience" I had earlier. More than enough to know you're chocked full of something which probably isn't blueberry muffins if you are for one second taken in by the transcendental gob-shite people bang on about concerning hallucinogenic drugs.

There's the inside of your head and there's the real world - and the two simply ain't the same monkey. The very definition of the word delusion resides in the inability of the individual to not only fail to distinguish between what they are mealy thinking and what in practice is actually transpiring but also to allow that internal landscape to take precident over ones perceptions of objective reality.

A trip's a trip d, nothing more to it. Climb aboard, enjoy the ride. Wonder why you find your shoes inside the cereal box when you come to have your breakfast the next morning. It's all part of life's rich tapestry - but keep doing that shit and you end up fried, there's no one who doesn't. Experiences are supposed to be just that d, experiences. Part of a whole shit load of other ones which in the end add up to a life.

Make a career out of them though and they're not experiences anymore - they just become the way things are. Face it d. Sitting on your backside staring at a deep field picture from Hubble, as this sojourn into the Twilight Zone originally began, is enough to blow anyone's mind clean out of its socks without dropping anything beforehand. If you can only get that buzz on from seeing a thing like that without dropping a tab first - you're not experiencing insights, your experiencing a problem.

Any chance of getting back on topic anytime soon 'cos I kind of had this whole speech prepared, there were diagrams and a coffee break planned, the wife made cake and sandwiches and everything...

A;)

I most certainly very do!

And have you never noticed, those societies which allowed themselves to be governed by mystical communication with the great one-ness of the Universe, or however one wishes to term it, through such customs disappeared resolutely and completely right up Histories backside, never to be seen again...

Patently, there'd be no possible kind of lesson in any of that.

The Mayans could outlive and outlast Western 'advanced' civilization. Shamanism and it's ugly stepsister sorcery are poised to make a big comeback. It's no doubt part of a Gaiian reflex that will save the planet from complete consumerist destruction. Witness Harry Potter, and all of the television shows about the occult--buffy the vampire slayer, etc... This is the collective unconscious's spooky scream for change.

The Mayans could outlive and outlast Western 'advanced' civilization. Shamanism and it's ugly stepsister sorcery are poised to make a big comeback. It's no doubt part of a Gaiian reflex that will save the planet from complete consumerist destruction. Witness Harry Potter, and all of the television shows about the occult--buffy the vampire slayer, etc... This is the collective unconscious's spooky scream for change.

A decisive strike to the failing heart of materialism. :p

Kicking the sh** out of crapitalism :D

The Mayans could outlive and outlast Western 'advanced' civilization. Shamanism and it's ugly stepsister sorcery are poised to make a big comeback. It's no doubt part of a Gaiian reflex that will save the planet from complete consumerist destruction. Witness Harry Potter, and all of the television shows about the occult--buffy the vampire slayer, etc... This is the collective unconscious's spooky scream for change.
Peculiar. I rather thought Harry Potter was a materialists cash-cow, JK Rowling's personally worth something in the region of a billion dollars US currently, and Buffy and Angel both got cancelled. Shame, I miss Angel.... :(

Actually, speaking of the Buffster - wasn't something of a recurrent theme throughout that show was, although thoroughly kick ass when it came to defeating the supernatural, she couldn't actually do dick in life, literally considering she only ever dated Vampires, until she relinquished the exclusive mantle of The Slayer by allowing all the potential Slayers in the world to become active thereby, finally, making her just one of many and able to contemplate a normal existence as a consequence.

Hardly posing as the Poster Child for "the collective unconscious's spooky scream for change" really is it, when all the principal character ever wanted to do was live the life of a regular young woman, is it?

I'm not advocating for sorcery, Mr.A. and I know squat about Buffy except that the theme is supernatural. Free market capitalism won't work indefinitely on a finite planet and the emphasis on mastery of the spiritual and mental realms, rather than material ones, has acquired a great appeal for many, as a consequense.

I'm not advocating for sorcery, Mr.A. and I know squat about Buffy except that the theme is supernatural. Free market capitalism won't work indefinitely on a finite planet and the emphasis on mastery of the spiritual and mental realms, rather than material ones, has acquired a great appeal for many, as a consequense.

Oh, it appeals, but only because they WANT TO BELIEVE in myths. But these myths are unfounded. And we have proven it.

Oh, that's right, we don't have to prove anything, THEY do.

Is this just a reaction to the futility of the flesh? Or is it because behind these "myths" lies something science is too impotent to understand?

Oh, and to Mr. Anonymous,

This thread seems similar in a minor way to one I started not too long ago. Take that, and meld it with the incommensurability thread...

Aliens is an apt description of the supposed beings who may or may not abduct, interact, or mess with human beings. In and out of this dimension.

Dimensions. Yes, where did OUR visible universe come from?

I asked that question once, and was assured that one day science would explain. That science could explain the existence of something that has persisted forever, and come from nothing, is rather extraordinary. Is energy created and destroyed? Then why IS it? In the first place?

All of that is alien. Am I right? Wrong?

I am right. Energy/matter is neither created nor destroyed, and yet it exists, and must have had an origin somewhere. It must have. If something has never been created, then how can it exist? Is this why we have theoretical physicists pondering higher dimensions? How high do they need to go?

Rael's explanation of human existence was that aliens created humans from their own genetic code, or something like that. When asked where the ALIENS came from, he said they were created by other aliens. And where did these other aliens come from??? From other aliens BEFORE the other aliens. And it goes on to infinity, says Rael.

But there is no God, says Rael. Only infinity.

After hearing Mr. Rael's theories, I concluded that he was simply giving a different name to the same concept. In fact, he sounded rather feeble when it came to the hall of mirrors.

Alien is what I call it. I don't need any dictionary to tell me yes or no. Dictionaries are human in origin.

And if these "rational" skeptics say that "aliens" are unlikely, why should I put my faith in them when they can't even explain why we humans are likely?

It seems pretty strange that I would take their word as truth. And not so strangely, I don't.

Mr A old chappie....bet ya thought yerd tripped me up. pardon the pun, with that aztec/Mayan card ey what......
well no dude. yes i am very aware of those cultures and how they used as aacrament psilocybin mushrooms---the elite did anyhow
their myth was that the Sun had sacrifice ITSelf to give life, so they figures that sun needs blood to continue, hence massive bloody sacrifices. have notes about other shit about this i may drag out ata later time

this is a very complex isse iaintjust skimmed over mr A. to just quicly preface a brief summary then...

We hae to differentiate between agraian peoples/indigenous peoples who were respectful of nATURE AND HELD MOREE TO A goddess CONCEPT OF REALITY FROM THE SOLAR/SKY GOD WARRIOR CULTS/TRIBES WHO appropriatedTHE SACRAMEnT....YES?

This is all adequately gone over in tis book, Shamanism and the Drug Propaganda: Patriarchy and the Drug War, by Dan Russell ISBN: 0-9650253-1-4

for example you get the move from oepn settlements suddenly being taken over by warrior invaders. thy have their sky-god 'marry' the people-of-te-lands Goddess and warp their mythology to suitthe new iron age agenda of warring and machoness etc, ANDmake sure their, now, slaves, do not havea share in the sacrament. only the warriors/elite do. right?

so as i said. it is a situation of warrior culture versus psychedelic culture, or sacramental respect of Nature and celebration of life culture. you withme??

surely you could see a resurface of this mood in the 60s right? and what happened? ......it got smashed down....byyyy? why by the by-NOW heavy-ily armed--talking nuclear fukin WARHEAD-armed warrriORRRR culture, dig. and its gettin even fatter as we speak.

now. onto your patronizing. 'listen mate its just yer brain doin is' nonesense.

as i have tried to explain for quite awhile now. philosophy and varius fileds o science are now tying to tackled what subjective consciousness may mean. David Chalmer's has called this research 'the hard problem'. s you pontificating you know exactly what psychedelic/deep experience IS is a littloe naive to say the least, dont yer think

i always feel more sad when i hear people whove HAD psychedelic experience and underestimate it tan i do from pople whove never had it who challenge it

enuf fo now. mo later!

Interesting, Duendy, interesting.

so as i said. it is a situation of warrior culture versus psychedelic culture, or sacramental respect of Nature and celebration of life culture. you withme??

The first part I respect, yes. But physical life? You're basically, and correct me if I'm wrong, describing two sides to nature: masculine vs. feminine. Nature and life is feminine, and masculine is "warrior culture" and materialism.

Isn't this dichotomy what physical life is about? Two opposing factions that are at their centers intertwined?

Interesting, Duendy, interesting.



The first part I respect, yes. But physical life? You're basically, and correct me if I'm wrong, describing two sides to nature: masculine vs. feminine. Nature and life is feminine, and masculine is "warrior culture" and materialism.

Isn't this dichotomy what physical life is about? Two opposing factions that are at their centers intertwined?
no your being'male-hating' with tat assumption-----hmmmm, digressin a tiny tick. we know misogyny is hatred of women ...right?....so what's a term for 'hater of men'..???

continuing . no this is NOT a male versus femal thing. it is a male-oriented MINDSET. for rememberits not onoy been women who were persecuted by this mindset, but men also, as well as all other speciesof both sex. it is a male MINDSET which diides itself from itsself and from Nature. tis mindset usually views Nature as being feminine and thus inferior accordin to teir book.

Okay. Though I see BOTH as being Nature, in the fullest sense of the notion.

Androgyny is the peacemaker, not one gender-pole or the other.

Androgyny is the peacemaker, not one gender-pole or the other.
of course, an many prepatriarchal poples also had insight into this. but agin the patriarchal mindset appropriates this METAPHOR, next thing wees being preached to by the Christians that the 'saved/good' areneither 'female' nor 'male' in heaven and dont do sex....!!

Maybe they aren't, Duendy, maybe they aren't.

that's right duendy, the self is neither male or female, only the body is.

found someofme notes about the Aztecs:

"Saw a review of te current Aztec exhibition last night. Learnt a lot about Aztecs (pssst - there was no mention of magic mushrooms!) --That their underlying religious belief was that the gods had sacrificed themselves to create the sun etc. So, in order to appease them, the Aztecs sacrificed many pple so as to feed the gods - including the Earth Goddess, blood!
The priests actually matted their hair with blood.
Most of the icons of the Aztecs are male - and very without any sense of humanness. The only representations of the female included a fierce goddess figure.
There was a large spherical stone carving of the moon goddess which was carved underneath. This was to represent their myth of having decaptiated the moon goddess.
This dogma says to me that their rejection
of the Feminine, the Goddess--the curse was their bloodlust-habit and inhumanity/subhumanness.
They apparently took quickly to their invaders' mythological ideology of the Son of God, Jesus, who was 'sacrificed' to appease God. Obviously resonating with the similar ethos....."

Interesting book about psychedelics, 'Breaking Open the Head', Daniel Pinchbeck. You won't be able to put it down once you start reading it. He has an interesting point of view and is a formidable writer, so it's really delightful. .

From the book:

I asked the spirits to show me Shakespeare. They said, "okay" (they are not always so accomodating). He was a magical being of great size and power, made of energy. There were a million spirits in the form of fizzy colored lights dancing around him, like tiny Japanese lanterns or candleflames, helping him as he wrote, his pen scrawling across the quantum Void. James Joyce was there as well - he was like a little pendant resting on Shakespeare's desk. I recognized that part of the artist's spirit went directly into their creations. Their spiritual power depended on the earthbound public's continued desire for their work. That is the deeper meaning of the artist's quest for immortality."

http://www.breakingopenthehead.com/read_the_book_phantasticum.htm

About the author:

Daniel Pinchbeck has written features for The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Wired, Harper's Bazaar, The Village Voice, Salon, and many other publications. He is one of the founders of Open City, an art and literary journal, and an independent book publisher. He was a 1999 - 2000 Fellow of the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University. He has also been a columnist for The Art Newspaper of London, and an editor at Connoisseur Magazine. Born in 1966, he grew up in New York City, where his father, Peter Pinchbeck, was an abstract painter. His mother, Joyce Johnson, was part of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. She is the author of several books, including Minor Characters, a memoir. He went to Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, then worked as a magazine editor and journalist,

In the late 1990s, after years of working in the media, Pinchbeck fell into the classic existential or spiritual crisis. Life seemed to have no point or transcendent meaning. He began to feel as if he was already dead, a ghost walking around the streets of Manhattan.

http://www.breakingopenthehead.com/about_the_author.htm

i actually tried to get a emal communication goin with him coupla years or maybe llonger ago...but found him a bit
...what i call ' i am published-ism'. ie., i have noticed with some pople who get their work published and abit of renown tend to clam up when it comes to spontaneous conversation....pisses me off when they say read my so and so, instead of actually talkin real time...goot a go for shit ..later

what i wanted to explore with him was this: i tend to feel, from research...tat shamanism, and in tis case South American shamanism is tending to patriarchism--defined s male supremacy. for example: one ofthe shaans Daniel raves on about is Don Caesrio. now, the story goes that tese women trafelled far to attend a shamanistic ritual wit Ayahuasca (a powerful psychedelic brew)..but, because one was in mntruation Don ouldn't not oly allow her to participate but also didn't want her near the sacrament etc for fear of affecting it negatively......!
now tat is patriarchl. he Don Caesario also champions asceticism and celibacy--anoter patriarchal trait

now.....a really informative book i have read--Shamanism: The Foundation of Magic, by Ward Rutherford reveals that shamanism from its beginnings was in rivalry with the more open communion/ecstasy for ALL Goddess vegetative rituals. wher everyone takes the sacrament and becomes 'possessed'

so do you see. i find tis extraordinarily intrigueing. and worthwhile looking deeper into. but i sensed Daniel was a bit aversw to me bringing this up.....

Mr A old chappie....bet ya thought yerd tripped me up. pardon the pun, with that aztec/Mayan card ey what......
well no dude. yes i am very aware of those cultures and how they used as aacrament psilocybin mushrooms---
Emmm, duendy? Since you acknowledging the fact that:That their underlying religious belief was that the gods had sacrificed themselves to create the sun etc. So, in order to appease them, the Aztecs sacrificed many pple so as to feed the gods - including the Earth Goddess, blood!
The priests actually matted their hair with blood.
You seem to be confusing reiterating what I originally said myself with making some form of point of your own - this issue I raised wasn't what they believed or why they particularly believed it, fascinating though that may actually be - the point was, and indeed actually remains - these fucked up, drug quaffing arseholes slaughtered their own people horribly wholly on the basis that their own fucked up, transcendental, hallucinogenic fuelled mind trips dictated it not merely acceptable, but necessary.

Y'know d, the way in which you can contrive to completely skip a whole inconvenient fact, never ceases to astound....

It's boggling, really. :)

Duendy, I think you must have missed this when I asked you a while back. Do you have any examples of scientific insights which have been arrived at by the use of hallucinogenic substances?
I remember once reading about a researcher who was convinced that, by taking LSD and subjecting himself to sensory deprivation, he could communicate telepathically with a nearby group of dolphins. Bizarre.

Indeed. There was also this one scientist in particular I distinctly remember watching documentary about - came to the conclusion that the only way to defeat the invading alien spine-parasytes threatening to take over our world was to in fact inject teenagers with pure LSD...

No wait. That wasn't actually a documentary at all. That was Vincent Price in The Tingler.

I'm sorry. I've been nibbling the corners of duendy's posts. Man. The colours... :m:

I am right. Energy/matter is neither created nor destroyed, and yet it exists, and must have had an origin somewhere. It must have. If something has never been created, then how can it exist? Is this why we have theoretical physicists pondering higher dimensions? How high do they need to go?
Well, you kind of answered your own question with starting out with a flawed concept - say matter/energy did originate from a higher dimension. You explain how matter/energy comes to first exist out of nothing in this dimension, but not how it first came to exist in this other, higher, dimension - except by it entering into this higher realm from some other, even higher dimension, and so on and so forth...

If you take that fully to its logical conclusion, there being yet more, infinite numbers of dimensions above that - then matter/energy still ends up coming out of absolutely nothing because there ends up being no "original" first higher dimension in which matter/energy originally forms to leak out into all the others.

Equally, if there is such a place as some kind of first, original higher dimension with no others higher than it, then matter/energy still has to form out of nothing within it.

In neither respect does the proposition answer anything, really. One way or another, in either scenario, matter/energy still ends up coming into existence completely out of bugger all.

I'm not advocating for sorcery, Mr.A. and I know squat about Buffy except that the theme is supernatural. Free market capitalism won't work indefinitely on a finite planet and the emphasis on mastery of the spiritual and mental realms, rather than material ones, has acquired a great appeal for many, as a consequense.
So what's all that got to do with Buffy then? It's principal themes were about everyday teenage/young adult life - the superficial trappings of the supernatural were only ever thinly veiled, and often terribly witty, metaphors for regular, day to day life. That's why BTVS as a show had such wide appeal and popularity - school kids could get it because they were in the sort of regular high school Buffy was set in and viewing such social ills for example of drink and drugs abuse being dealt with in terms of Vampires being a metaphor for people with drink and drugs related problems was approached in a way that didn't preach but in a funny kind of way told it like it is - adults got it equally because the same metaphors of demons and monsters personifying certain sociological issues from their own experience of the same rang true on a great number of levels.

For example - A love struck Vampire Slayer in love with a Vampire with a soul acquiesces to teenage passion and sleeps with her paramour - the morning after she awakes to find him a soulless, swaggering asshole no longer interested in the her as a person, only a conquest - its a parody of real life few of the shows female audience failed to get instantly and it was on exactly these kind themes and levels Buffy The Vampire Slayer worked exclusively for its audience.

Quite what the show had to do with the supernatural I have absolutely no idea - let alone you're interpretation of its popularity being evidence of some stand point the show in question had absolutely nothing at all to do with.

So I'm remaining rather curious - what does BTVS have to do with some perceived sociologically evident dissatisfaction regarding the Free Market Economy?

Emmm, duendy? Since you acknowledging the fact that:
You seem to be confusing reiterating what I originally said myself with making some form of point of your own - this issue I raised wasn't what they believed or why they particularly believed it, fascinating though that may actually be - the point was, and indeed actually remains - these fucked up, drug quaffing arseholes slaughtered their own people horribly wholly on the basis that their own fucked up, transcendental, hallucinogenic fuelled mind trips dictated it not merely acceptable, but necessary.

me)))))))well with that reponse anyone would tink you had never HAD had psychedelic experience....such vitriol mr
. and no no noooo mr A. i didn't miss yourpoint at all at all. ting is you haven't clicked with what i am saying. so i will TRY once agin. ready?......i am saying t you , yes it IS true that the warrior elite of tat culture DID take psychedelic mushrooms, but that doesn't mean that taking sacraments is wrong, for as i tried to explain o you, from my researches here has been an appropriation of the sacraments by a warrior mindset who disrespcts Nature and the feminine/Goddess. which is why i showed you my notews to confirm their worldview as reflected in their art.
it is not only cultures who consume mind-alterting substances who have committed atrocities, and genocicide you know meister Anon.....spose you think the atomic bomb was picnic or something?

Y'know d, the way in which you can contrive to completely skip a whole inconvenient fact, never ceases to astound....

It's boggling, really. :)
so is your lack of understanding...really

Duendy, I think you must have missed this when I asked you a while back. Do you have any examples of scientific insights which have been arrived at by the use of hallucinogenic substances?
I remember once reading about a researcher who was convinced that, by taking LSD and subjecting himself to sensory deprivation, he could communicate telepathically with a nearby group of dolphins. Bizarre.
Yes that was John Lilly. He also used a 'floatation tank' as set and setting. he has done some great research with Dolphins

it is always frustraing--ish when smeone asks you for sources, and only a bit before you were reading exactly about it, but forget the site or your notes on it. it was all about what yo ask and included also world wide wewb innovators
ctaully Lika it is PROFOUND rthe creative imnspiration the psychedelic era hashad on ideas. yes rhere are 'lists' of people, bt also understand that precisely because of te negative propagandathat ensued, many famous pople would obviously keep schtum about thier dilly dallyings wit psychedelics and their forthcoming insights.......
howEVER i have found this
'Stoned Scientists
www.cannabisculture.com/articles/2783.html

also, not sure if Francis Crick's mentioned there, but i know he--as co-creator of the 'discovery' of the Double_Helix was inspired with LSD

also note that the very term 'geni-us' derives from psychedelic mythology. see, angels/genii are really metaphors FOR sacraments----For ancients, sacraments were sometimes seen as 'messengers'--ie., 'angels'

In neither respect does the proposition answer anything, really. One way or another, in either scenario, matter/energy still ends up coming into existence completely out of bugger all.

I am fully aware of that, but my intentions weren't apparent enough I guess. I wasn't actually giving support to one theory or another, just using examples. Let me try to explain what I was getting at...

Multi-dimensional aliens came to my mind when I was writing that.

Aliens is an apt description of the supposed beings who may or may not abduct, interact, or mess with human beings. In and out of this dimension.

Numerous persons have speculated that what are commonly called aliens as in "alien abduction" are very possibly extradimensional. These speculations are built on a variety of characteristics and abilities (and the high level of strangeness) exhibited by the beings and their crafts and associated phenomena.

These ideas and conclusions are the core of some people's theories about the nature of the visitors. Others do not accept any transdimensional or spiritual natures, and tend to assume that these beings are physically solid.

Some people discount the entire thing, saying that physical aliens are improbable and the notion of transdimensional entities is, generally speaking, an absurdity. The very weird aspects of some of the stranger ufo and alien encounters would be grounds for expulsion of the entire thing.

However, many people also theorize that our dimension may be ruled by a larger dimension, and thus, there is a possible connection between such higher realities and the nature of ETs, whatever they are.

In the same vein that extraterrestrials are alien and considered for the most part impossible, so is the origin of matter from nothing an alien concept.

I was drawing a line between the strangeness of "aliens" as part of the UFO enigma, and the strangeness of the universe and moreover its origin.
And if these "rational" skeptics say that "aliens" are unlikely, why should I put my faith in them when they can't even explain why we humans are likely?

Just because the concept of "aliens" or ETs appears farfetched, it should not be discounted when the very idea of something existing in a kind of loop with no beginning or end is equally strange. Both are alien.

Sorry if I wasn't addressing your actual question, though I tried to the best of my ability.

Mr. A,
Are you so interested in aliens and UFOs because you live in Britain? I've heard there are a lot of sightings and weird things that happens there. For instance, over half of the world's crop circles occur in the UK. Ever seen anything rather shifty?

Since no one ever reads anything down here Francois, and being as you're such an admirable sort for asking, I'll let you into a tiny indiscretion...

For a spell, it actually used to be my job to look into this exact sort of stuff full time. This isn't particularly to say a very great deal. For a spell equally I suppose one could say I actually qualified as a full time Pornographer as well. Like the UFO stuff, it kind of went with the job.

In publishing it's the market which dictates content. If you're target market is interested in Flower Pots, you give them everything there is to know about flower pots. If they're interested in ET and UFO's, you tell them all about that. There's very little incentive to actually do anything but the most rudimentary of research on features published in a monthly magazine, especially with subject matter such as this, and coming from a background in actual journalism this had a tendency to get on every last nerve in my body. It was a well paid gig, cushy in the extreme, I got to interview and meet a good many interesting and entertaining people.

But still, the fact that I was being hired in a given capacity and actively dissuaded from doing anything even remotely conforming to what my job description entailed, chaffed somewhat.

Most of what I ran into consisted of exactly the sort of fair you'll find throughout the archives of a forum like Pseudoscience from one end of the internet to the next.

Some though, genuinely, didn't.

And that being the case, of course, one has a tendency to want to learn a little bit more. Partly it was the job, mostly just human nature. I had the privilege of interviewing a number of former pilots, ex-RAF and Commercial in the main. Went hand in hand with another actual longstanding interest of mine, aviation. Anyway, they were all chaps with a tale to tell. Objects sighted, reports filled in and filed. No blathering on about extraterrestrials or embellishing of "facts" - just straight forward observational reports given by chaps who knew what a sky looks like, knew what a plane can do and what it can't, knew how what they were describing might make them sound and yet sticking to their respective stories, despite some of the hullabaloo some had run into as a result.

I found them plausible. Got to thinking about what they were describing, pondered could there actually be any form of relatively straight forward physics which could account for a vehicle behaving in the sort of manner consistent with these sorts of reports and found to my eternal amusement that actually there was.

Gave me something actually sane to think about whist working out how to relay Mrs-X-from-Cheam's unearthly encounters with being from another world to a completely uncritical audience with an as close to almost straight face as I could muster...

How can the relatively brief and conclusion free descriptions of actually trained observers possibly compete with the Mr and Mrs X's of this world, Francois? Everyone already knows the world is being visited by aliens, they knew it before the term Flying Saucer was ever invented - all that was ever required was proof and the Mr & Mrs X's of this world give everything everyone who ever gave a crap about the subject exactly what they want to hear, exactly how they like to hear it.

I did this garbage for a living, it was my job. Hardly hard work, but nevertheless, work mitigated by a salary. I have few regrets and it amuses the hell out of me running across some story on the internet, pertaining to be fact, knowing as I do exactly where the story originates and people still buying it hook, line and sinker.

One could almost call it cruel, but in Publishing it's the market that dictates content - never the other way around.

And yet people can contrive to feel genuinely aggrieved that they never get what they actually want...

And the funniest thing of all? It's perfectly possible that vehicles which conform to UFO description and behaviour are actually real. As long as I live, I doubt I'll ever give spit for any of the rest of the garbage that tends to go with that, and I'll go a good country mile to avoid like the plague just to make sure I don't have to, but those chaps I talked to - they did actually see what they described. I know it. There's no actually real physical reason why they shouldn't have. Nothing they relayed witnessing contravened the laws of either physics, nature or credibility in the slightest. I wouldn't be adversed, given the garbage I've helped peddle, giving at least lip service to the notion of making it so that, before the last of them finally kicks the bucket, they can know once and for certain that no, it wasn't a trick of the light or Venus or any of the rest of the other garbage that gets trotted out against the notion with the predictability of Mr and Mrs X's abduction experiences and exactly as much credibility.

What can I say. I'm an absolute sucker for a lost cause....

Did that answer you're question?

A ;)

You are assuming they are DNA lifeforms making proteins from the same twenty amino acids Earth life does and has the same codons in its DNA. That is quite an assumption. If it is invalid, which is highly likely, then it will always be obvious that it is alien.


What about the likely possibility of alien micro-organisms or alien DNA?

Wow, that's an interesting job you had, it sounds, Mr. A.

I found them plausible. Got to thinking about what they were describing, pondered could there actually be any form of relatively straight forward physics which could account for a vehicle behaving in the sort of manner consistent with these sorts of reports and found to my eternal amusement that actually there was.
That got me interested, but then you never elaborated on it. What kind of physics are you talking about? Are some of the maneauvers the pilots you interviewed talked about ones where an object would go 1,000 mph and then turn on a dime, instantly stop and then take off at 5,000 mph?

It's a really weird subject, UFOs. They sometimes make the news over here, actually. A few years ago I remember reading in MSNBC about black triangles flying silently at low altitudes over freeways and they become quite a phenomenon. I've never seen one. But they don't make the news all that much.
What's odd that I find about it is how few people have a rational middleground outlook on the topic. Either they think all UFOs are aliens in the sky or they think it's Venus, no matter how much it doesn't make sense.
"But its lights flashed and changed colors and swooped down at 5,000 mph, turned around, and took off in the other direction over the horizon!"
"It was Venus, god damn you!"
Their biases get in the way to a ridiculous extent and it prevents them from seeing what's right in their faces.

Like I mentioned before, we really don't get that much press coverage over UFO sightings. I've heard there are a lot more sightings in the UK area. Do UFOs make the news a lot over there?

Like I mentioned before, we really don't get that much press coverage over UFO sightings. I've heard there are a lot more sightings in the UK area. Do UFOs make the news a lot over there?

:) ... It depends on what's on at the local cinema. Really. You'll find that when there's a buzz on, fresh on the back of something either TV or Hollywood (Spielberg's Taken was about the last fairly large shout) UFO and Alien stories crop up all over the shop as too reported sightings and general interest. With television news, not much on the national front, but local news feeds yes. Tabloids on the other hand have a long standing stock in trade with such fare - mostly crop circles, the odd UFO. Abduction's never been a subject in the main which has ever really taken over here, aside from the sort of glossy, full colour rag of a publication I was on of course. There's generally not all that many publications handle such fair these days, The Fortean Times excepted.

Mostly though its UFO sightings and Crop Circles. We have a lot of air traffic and even more bored undergraduates over here. That's possibly the only difference.

Wow, that's an interesting job you had, it sounds, Mr. A.

That's certainly one way of describing it, I suppose. In practice though, it was just a relatively clean but pokey office, half a dozen substandard PC's, some truly tacky postery on the walls and more emails than I'll ever voluntarily wish to be the recipient of again. Assignments were always good, but as I say, actual journalism was never particularly high on the agenda.

What's odd that I find about it is how few people have a rational middleground outlook on the topic. Either they think all UFOs are aliens in the sky or they think it's Venus, no matter how much it doesn't make sense.

Well, no. You're absolutely right. It's all either absolutely everything or absolutely nothing at all - not much in the way of mid-ground whatsoever. It the whole extraterrestrial angle - it demands polarisation of opinion. On the one hand, anyone can accept the notion of life of mostly any kind existing elsewhere in the Universe - even the most die-hard of UFO septic will readily conceed the point - but when UFO pundits bring things down to the frankly ludicrous levels of debate as they often do - discussion rarely centres on UFO's.

It's all about extraterrestrials.

The pro-lobby bang on as if the things in the first place are well established proven fact as well as every other half baked idea which seems to suggest that, on paper, X maybe possible therefore Y and Z naturally follow on as an inevitable consequence.

I'm of the honest opinion that frankly few people in the history of the subject have ever truly given the first stuff about UFO's except in terms of what people honestly seem to believe UFO's represent - extraterrestrials, first, foremost and forever.

If a person observes a plane flying, one can't possibly discern anything at all regarding the disposition and mating habits of the pilot. Where he hails from, what airport he took off from, indeed, which airport he is going to land. All of such issues can't possibly be reasoned simply based on merely what the eye can possibly see - but when it's a UFO, suddenly the world and his dog develop the ability to not only do as such, but more.

They'll even draw you diagrams and charts just to prove it.

No. Not much in the way of mid-ground you are pristinely correct. Given that pretty much all of what has become "Ufology" remains simply the expression of individual peoples various beliefs concerning what certain idea's mean to them - there simply is no real mid-ground to be found in the subject.

What is claimed as being "known" is merely that which people anticipate and surmise. Always has been, likely always will.

That got me interested, but then you never elaborated on it. What kind of physics are you talking about? Are some of the maneauvers the pilots you interviewed talked about ones where an object would go 1,000 mph and then turn on a dime, instantly stop and then take off at 5,000 mph?

If you insist old chap, but I warn you: it contains moving pictures and only uses standard applied physics... HOW (http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/how-by-frank-marshal/Index.html)

Don't worry, it's only a few pages long and mostly illustration. Each section is available in PDF, better quality and y'can browse at your leisure off line. Just hit the download button if the first page looks promising, if not just nod sympathetically and patiently and make out that you read it...

Have fun,

A ;)

In russia we have lots of UFOs. small ones and big ones.

Small UFO ate my dog and not give it back.

kebabomatic, does your life revolve around dogs and kebabs?

No my friend. I am not shallow. i like monstertrucks and going to stripclubs too.

In russia we have lots of UFOs. small ones and big ones.

Small UFO ate my dog and not give it back.

Funny y'should mention that. I once owned a dog that ate a small UFO. Lamentably, he did very much so give it back. Bugger to get out of a leopard skin rug I'll tell you. Took the Butler weeks, poor man.... :(

/ :)

What about the likely possibility of alien micro-organisms or alien DNA?What about it?
And what makes you think it is likely?

In terms of alien lifeforms DNA stands for Don't kNow Anything.

/ :)

:) Gustav, you old devile! I'm inexcusably pleased to see you, thought you'd died or something. I trust you are well?

Both in terms of popular culture and extensively throughout UFO Belief the concept of Extraterrestrials, Aliens if you will, paints a picture of beings humanoid in aspect, perceived as been driven by motives understandable to humans in human terms - Then there's the other side of the coin. Stanley Kubrick in the film 2001 depicts ETI as singularly undefinable - a presence only disclosing nothing whatsoever regarding its actual nature except that in being present, for want of a better word, apparently it does stuff - even though theirs no real way of understanding anything at all regarding how, what, when and how.

It's a startlingly different portrayal of what the term Alien actually means - So, if you feel prompted to ever use the term at all, what you consider terms such as Aliens, Extraterrestrials, ETI, etc to actually mean?

it is an interesting statement of the absolutism of arrogence of the human leaders and those who dictate education systems.
There is just as likely to be life forms in existence that have originated of the earth that would be deemed by the common person as alien in comparrison to the human species.
It is still a fairly good guide as the the level of developmnent of the speices in how it defines its self and other life forms it has no direct control over.
note fear is the main underlying tool used to control children which breeds adults controlled by fear and thinking with fear.

now there is a turning toward more fundermental religios ideas in some western countrys which is turning education backwards and sending undercurrents of hate and biggotry into communaties around the world,
all at a time when we are supposed to be coming together.
instead the leaders are trying to drive us further apart using fear.

soo much for intellegent life.

Que<> Pink Floyd On The Turning Away
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/p/pink+floyd/on+the+turning+away_20108622.html

mra

doing alright, buddy ;)

riple

Kia ora, Kei te pehea koe?

/wondering if memory serves..

now there is a turning toward more fundermental religios ideas in some western countrys which is turning education backwards and sending undercurrents of hate and biggotry into communaties around the world,
all at a time when we are supposed to be coming together.
instead the leaders are trying to drive us further apart using fear.

soo much for intellegent life.



Technically that doesn't disprove Intelligent Life, it mearly proves while the Apathic herd like sheep, those that Cling to power do so by manipulation, no matter what the cost of such manipulation.

In short, it's all a power game and always will be until Heirarchy is "Flattened" further.

soo much for intellegent life.

Well, they do say there better be some, somewhere out there, 'cos there's certainly bugger all down here...

Which is the thing of it. Transposition. Basically our concept of alien intelligence is that of ourselves - what we hope for, what we aspire towards - in the darker recesses - what we fear. All, fundamentally speaking, about ourselves. I'm not quite sure what it is. Perhaps, possibly, without the benefit of any form of actual comparison readily to hand, we take words like "Aliens" and "Extraterrestrials" quite genuinely meaning to comprehend something of the nature of something not actually us at all - but in the end, it's the limits of human imagination which hold us back, reign us in and basically reduce the notion in popular concept down to that of simply every other shade of actor who ever donned Klingon make-up in Star Trek, or else just simply that of them being merely forigners...

Even HG Wells was guilty of that much, and he's one of the buggers who first started the whole notion off. The Martians in War of The Worlds, though physically distinct from ourselves - basically they're no different from the Colonial British at the end of the Nineteenth Century. Weak, indifferent, arrogant, safe in their own assurance. Their technology makes them formidable - the Martians themselves, less even us.

Ever since man first gazed at the stars, we've made up stories about them. Tales of Legends, myths and allegory. It's all we really know. Likely all we ever will. We need to understand. The ability to fictionalise, to transpose what we do know and understand onto some other stage so that, ultimately, we can understand ourselves better.

The alternative is Clarke's Black Monoliths. Hard to get a purchase on, even for the author. Sooner or later, the human motivations start creeping back in...

Our limitations. Our lack of actual knowledge and experience.

Perhaps a better question to have asked would have been: Would aliens imagine such creatures as us?

Ridiculous question, I suppose. But occasionally I like to ponder it. Somehow I very much doubt it. But thats just the limitations of my imagination at at work. I singularly doubt anything more profound than that.... ;)

mra

doing alright, buddy

:) ... I'm curiously pleased to hear it old man, been quiet as the grave down here without you... :p

For a spell, it actually used to be my job to look into this exact sort of stuff full time. A ;)

if you did not, then i highly recomend you do a little of similar research on eye witnes science, in the proces of evaluating the real amount of credible data gathered and diceminated by eye witnesses.
sceince seems to have outlined such a massive rift between truth and reality i am astounded that an eye witnes account ever stands up in a court of law.

it is quite bizar indeed.

There's a very old method of introducing the subject of sociology, y'still find it used as an opening gambit with A Level students even today. It's called "The World Is Flat" argument.

Basically the tutor makes an, on the face of it, outrageously dumb sounding assertion - in this case: The World Is Flat: Prove Me Wrong....

In playing the game the students call upon their knowledge of History, Science, "Factual" and Photographic evidence - all of which the tutor can discount, perfectly reasonably actually, on the basis of one simple argument - nothing the students provide is based in any way on their own, personal, physical experience. It's all either anecdotal, third party, or else just simply the regurgitation of "informed" knowledge...

And the bugger of it is, it's true.

Unless you happen to be either a pilot or else astronaut, you really don't have any first hand evidence to support the notion that, indeed, the world is round.

Yet despite that, we all "know" that the idea of the world being as flat as it appears to be from our usual perspective of it remains a nonsense. We're absolutely right of course but rarely, it transpires in practice, through any actually scientifically acceptable process....

I take it BADBOB that you are lsufos trying to avoid a ban.

And the bugger of it is, it's true.

Unless you happen to be either a pilot or else astronaut, you really don't have any first hand evidence to support the notion that, indeed, the world is round.


And you know whats really annoying is that you are wrong. If the world was flat, your view of it wouldnt be the way is actually is from the top of a hill. Why cant I see all the way across the Atlantic and see New York as a smudge in the distance? Why is it that I cannot stand on a hill in Edinburgh and actually see much of Ben Lomond?

Could it be the earth is round?

And you know whats really annoying is that you are wrong. If the world was flat, your view of it wouldnt be the way is actually is from the top of a hill. Why cant I see all the way across the Atlantic and see New York as a smudge in the distance? Why is it that I cannot stand on a hill in Edinburgh and actually see much of Ben Lomond?

Could it be the earth is round?

...simple...its cause people are farsighted...they cant see too far.:cool:

And you know whats really annoying is that you are wrong. If the world was flat, your view of it wouldnt be the way is actually is from the top of a hill. Why cant I see all the way across the Atlantic and see New York as a smudge in the distance? Why is it that I cannot stand on a hill in Edinburgh and actually see much of Ben Lomond?

Could it be the earth is round?

Well, Guthrie. Stryder beat me to it.....

I take it BADBOB that you are lsufos trying to avoid a ban.

Mmmm, Snigins I believe. For a start, it's written in a language almost passing for English - for the other. Well, if you read any of Snigins posts you'll understand why he got banned in the first place. Apparently, it's all mine and Philo's fault. We're very bad men and need to be stalked...