aliens i think not

Sceptics > Believers >>>>>> Visiting aliens

 

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The flying saucer is a MANMADE device which utilizes high voltage electricity to work its "magic."

All matter is made of electrical charges moving around. (electrical currents)

THUS: The flying saucer was invented by Nikola Tesla. There is only one thing which can explain the flying saucer's ability to "defy physics." And there are no contradictions in reality. MOMENTUM IS SYNTHESIZED WITH HIGH VOLTAGE ELECTRICITY BY USE OF TESLA COILS! RATHER THAN WORKING AGAINST THE RESISTENCE TO MOVEMENT, THE FLYING SAUCER ELLIMINATES THE RESISTENCE IN A GIVEN DIRECTION, THUS IT MOVES IN THAT DIRECTION. THIS IS DONE BY "POLARIZING THE RESISTENCE," SO THE FLYING SAUCER MOVES IN THE DIRECTION OF LEAST RESISTENCE.

I WOULD STAKE MY LIFE UPON THIS INFORMATION, USE IT WISELY, THE EYE IN THE SKY NEVER BLINKS... (the flying saucer is used by HUMANS to keep society in a form of slavery) These are the facts of reality.

 

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While I agree that these UFOs probably are man made, I really do think that "they are being used to keep society in a form of slavery" is perhaps a teeny bit OTT. How exactly are they being used towards this end? By inspiring incredulity against conspiracists? I don't feel in a form of slavery towards anyone.

Also, you may wish to note that excessive typing in capitals really doesn't do a lot for your story.

 

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I really wish you would check out your local library for material on physics.

It's like claiming you know surgery but state all organs inside someone look the same. I wouldn't want to be on your table (coughslabcough).

 

Too bad you have to buy your energy from the gas pump, while the control freaks get to use free energy technology.

Correction: I really wish you would check out your local library for PROPAGANDA on physics.

 

Glenn, while your points are all quite valid, you are still assuming that certain courses of technological development are inevitable, such as eventual air travel, complex mathematical systems, space travel, etc... None of these developments are a given. Societies on Earth existed for thousands of years without many of them because their environment did not dictate that those developments should take place. You are also assuming that the same type of technological diffusion will occur on an alien world that has occurred on our own. You are also assuming that one alien planet will only hold one civilization, and I don't see how this can be a totally reasonable assumption since our own planet is still not fully integrated, and there are numerous factors in history that make it difficult to say with certainty that such a course is an inevitability. Like you said, we are predicting with a statistical sample base of 1.

Yes, one society may have certain capabilities that another does not have in certain areas of technology, but there is no reason to believe that every piece of technology (and all the capabilities that come along with it) are going to have been discovered and highly utilized on the large scale by another civilization in the universe. Such an assumption gives the extraterrestrials seemingly endless foresight into the future because it supposes that they will know, at the outset, what the implications of every development are on their entire civilization. All I am saying is that time is not the sole factor in technological development, it's not even a major one at that, and to assume that there are a large number of alien civilizations in the universe (actually, let's just say the galaxy, or even better our region of the galaxy since those are the only ones worth thinking about) that have all the tools that we have as well as more because the species has been around longer. I am saying that such an assumption is unreasonable.

Modern Homo Sapiens have existed on this planet for at least 50,000 years, probably more if you want to count hominid species that are nearly the same as our own, and out of all that time most of it was spent with little or no technological development simply because the need was not there. Even throughout most of the 5,000 years of our recorded history, technological capabilities remained mostly the same. The rapid growth that everyone sees all around us all the time was not necessarily inevitable, and it has only occurred within the past several centuries, and even in the beginning of that the growth it was not as a result of new knowledge, but of discoveries of old knowledge. When those skills and ideas were first pondered, there was no marked difference in the way that people conducted their daily lives, and things went on as normal for another few thousand years. If you believe that the universe is consistent throughout, then you can only use our own species as an example to predict the development of other species, and you must have a healthy understanding of our own history in order to do that.

Also, your point on genetic self-modification sounds good, but when you really think about it what would the species directing it's own mutation be changing itself in response to? The environment, of course. The only things that would give them a reason to utilize this technology in the first place are environmental changes, but what such a technology allows for is change BEFORE it is needed, thus increasing the speed of adaptation, but not it's direction. I will give you that changes which seem not to fit into environmental conditions maybe be forced through such technology, but since we cannot know the reasons why such a change would be made it is a moot point.

 

True, true. A civilisation could remain for thousands of years in a greek/roman state.

 

Sure. But the question is:

Skeptics > Believers >>>>>> Visiting aliens>0?

The term I used was 'spacefaring species'. This places the necessary qualifications upon the matters you discuss. For instance, while it's true Home Sapien Sapien has been around for 50,000 years, we didn't qualify as 'spacefaring' until the 1950's.

I didn't stipulate at any point that all spacefaring races must all come from different planets than one another. I merely pointed out that the statistical practice for a sample base of 1 is to assume the data point is average. And if that is the case, we know that more spacefaring species have gone before us then will after us because we know our star was formed late in the galactic cycle. We are not working with one, but two, data points.

The very fact that ET is older and is presumably spread out through the galaxy means that there will have been a higher probability of him needing to exhaustively explore all forms of technical improvement in the past. With regard to an understanding of the laws and physics of the universe, ET will have developed an utterly comprehensive 'Grand Unified Theory' not as a matter of need, but as a matter of course.

If the juxtaposition of our two viewpoints means that ET's continuing technological improvement is mired in the law of diminishing returns (as opposed to hitting an outright physical wall as I suggest) then so be it. I've got no problem granting that ET might, with say 10 years of utmost effort at the federal level, increase the efficiency of his trash compactor 1%.

You've hit the heart of the matter here. It appears you believe genetic modification will come for the purpose of adapting to external conditions. I believe that they will be aimed first and foremost to addressing an internal agenda.

Let's use our 1-point statistical base as the example. If I understand you correctly, you believe that if mankind begins to modify his own genome it will be to tailor it to specific environmental pressures. Perhaps to combat disease, or to allow us to function in hotter climatic conditions as this joint globally warms, etc - the list goes on and on.

I believe that the primary force behind species self-modification will be internally motivated. That is to say, I think the pressure causing changes will stem from competition within our own species, and not so much with reference to any outside stresses. Assuming that genetic engineering must take place before birth, I propose that the driving forces will fall into three general categories:

1) Family motivated genetic alteration.

This drive will stem from parents with regard to their children's well-being. It derives from the fact that competition for jobs, resources, mates - everthing - is pervasive, and that parents are fantastically motivated to give their offspring the greatest advantages in life they can. Not too short. Not too thin or too fat. Healthy, not sickly. Fetching over ugly. Intelligent, not stupid. Etc., etc.

I'm not for a moment thinking parents will go in for 1984-style factory babies or crap like that. But I do believe parents feverently hope to pass on their own best traits, and this will start to skew matters in a statistically predicatable fashion. For example, if the father has bad teeth and the mother's are fantastic, then they might choose for the mother's teeth genes to be selected for all their children. If both have bad teeth, they might purchase a better gene set for their kids; only 99.9% of the genes of their children come exclusively from one or the other parent. They might elect to replace or alter a few for some reason. One parent might contribute more than 50% of the material for some reason. (It is also conceivable that the number of parents will diversify somewhat from the basic two, I suppose)

Over time, I think this force will predictably alter the genetic composition of Homo Sapien. Rotting teeth DNA, for instance, will gradually be weeded out of the genome.

2) Societal genetic alteration.

Similar but different to no. 1 above. The idea here is that there exists within our DNA certain genes that are not desirable for the purpose of a legal and orderly society, and these will therefore be targeted - not by the parents, but by governments and other regulating bodies. For example, if a gene is identified that will increase the chances that the person carrying it will commit rape, then I can see it eventually being legislated that it must be replaced by another gene that doesn't have this effect, but is otherwise identical.

3) Security-oriented genetic alteration.

As you'll notice in the past few years, our well-being as a society is being increasingly held hostage to a few individuals willing to commit terror. This is because technology appears to be evolving in a way where individuals are now able to exert a personal threat to society on a scale hitherto reserved for nations. For example, Bin Laden runs airliners into the World Trade Towers. This was not possible for a few dorks to do until we invented airliners and really tall building that can hold 50,000 people. ET's problem is bigger than ours right now, because ET's tech is more destructive. His loser-dorks can run a spaceship through a planet at .99c and liquefy it's crust, killing billions of citizens. Hence ET will have had a tremendous incentive to genetically alter his society to prevent this type of self-destructive behavior.

These three proposed driving forces, should cause the following three proposed Rules of thumb, or trends, from which we might fancy the nature of a visiting ET.

Rule 1: The tendency to eliminate or degrade a gene or genetic trait's influence in an engineered environment will be proportional to the gene's inherent expression of advantages vs. disadvantages within that society. That is to say, the more a gene handicaps it's recipients, the less likely it will be to pass on unmolested into the next generation. (Note, this is similar to stand Darwinian evolution, but the pace and precision of alteration will be 'off the map' in comparison to natural selection).

Rule 2: There will be a trend, or gradual convergence of, a civilization's criminal and civil codes of conduct, and that civilization's own genome. That is to say, over time the genome's expression of civil and criminal behavior will evolve towards the standards demanded by the host civilization's legislative expressions of the same.


Rule 3: Individuals with access to, or control over, potentially dangerous technology or devices will more likely to be subjected screening and other biological safeguards than those who do not have such temptation or responsibility.

 

Right.

 

I guess we've hit the wall in our discussion at this point, because we have several fundamentally different opinions in the broad sense.

I do not think that spacefaring civilizations will be as common in the universe as you probably suppose. I could be wrong, but it seems that you believe it will be a common phenomenon because space travel is somehow the logical conclusion of technological developments. I do not believe it is a common or even necessary development, and that an intelligent, civilization building species could further their existence until their extinction or speciation without ever having embarked upon more space travel than, say, probes and asteroid deflections. Until we find another civilization in the universe, the difference can't be settled in my opinion.

As far as your assumption that ET will have had need to explore all technological developments, it doesn't seem reasonable to me in that he may not exist in a sufficiently varied environment for that need to prevail. He may only exist in relatively (to us) small numbers and in a relatively (to us) small number of places on the planet that he evolved upon. There is no reason to believe that he will have spread across his planet in the way that we have, because there is no reason to believe that he would have ever had need to. Environmental variety is at the core of all technological developments, and so without that variety there is no reason to believe that many different technologies would have ever developed. You must assume, in order to have your opinion, that certain historical trends that we have experienced are inevitable, and there is no reason to believe that.

Your views on genetic self modification are perfectly valid, but the main problem I see with them (as far as humankind is concerned since we can only use ourselves as an example) is that the vast majority of individuals would not find the alteration of their children (or themselves, if it does not have to happen before birth) a very appealing idea simply because of the protectiveness of people over their children. Most people would be too afraid of mistakes and/or distopia for anything like that to happen on a large scale. I can't say the same things about ET, but I can say that with confidence about people and so I apply it to ET. I could be wrong, but only time will tell.

I feel like we've exhausted the topic, but if you'd like to continue then feel free.

 

I’ve no set opinion on the topic. The thread is whether ET is here, and I think we all agree that either he is or he ain’t. Different posters merely assign different probability to each possibility. If he’s not here, then all of your reasoning is valid; case closed. If he is here, then your thinking falls to the ground; case closed. I recognize the validity of the musings you outline, and do not challenge them within the framework of no ET visitation. I merely do not assign ‘no ET visitation’ a 100% chance of being correct. My question to you would be, of what use to us is your theory if ET is actually here?

And you might be correct. But do recall that the framework of this discussion isn’t whether ET is there, it is if he is here. You’ve got a fantastic base of reasoning to cover that one possibility....But then so did Nagumo at the Battle of Midway in 1942. (That didn’t work out so well. The Americans turned out to be where they weren’t supposed to be.)

And if so, then that particular ET might not have pushed the technical envelope as far I suggest. However, do recognize that if ET is on, say, 10,000 worlds, then this reasoning is invalid; by shear variety over time, ET will have had great incentive to explore many avenues.

Also, you seem to assume that ET’s society isn’t driven towards internal competition – a strange position to me, since internal competition between people, tribes, businesses, corporations, nations, is a central facet to the reality of life here on Earth.

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This implies that ET can blithely assume every other intelligent species in the galaxy shares his laziness. Question: what does ET do if not every one of his stellar neighbors is such a homebody? Do you not find it potentially dangerous for ET to permit the expansion of an unknown, possibly hostile, competitor? If ET doesn’t spread and his rival does, is it not the case that, sooner or later, ET’s very existence may depend upon the sufferance of another civilization?

My views on genetic engineering have not been posted.

I’ve outlined what I believe to be potential trends to allow us to form at least a basic hypothesis concerning the potential engineering history of a visiting species, if one is here.

Indeed, ‘only time will tell’. I would hazard a guess the process will start with genetic therapies to combat deadly illnesses, such as Sickle Cell Anemia, childhood cancers of all type, etc. If these work without complication, then I can see the procedure gradually spreading.

 

Alright, then that's it. I don't believe that aliens are visiting our planet, so I have a problem entertaining it long enough to debate what they would be like if they were here. I suppose that, if aliens were conclusively known to be visiting our planet by the world community at large, then it would present a serious challenge to how I believe the universe works, especially since most of my reasons for thinking that they are not here are very reasonable. It's just too weird for me to consider unless I know for certain that it is happening.

 

Btw, I applaude you guys since you've managed to have a discussion where others usually end up frantically barking at one another and chasing their own tails.

As you can guess with any subject, there is only so far you can go before the discussion is exhausted when you have no new material or evidence to alter perspectives. which is why for the most part those Sciforums members that have been here the longest have said the same things over and over again, to the point where it's got tiresome to them. Which is why it's good to see some fresh discussion.

 

Thank you, Stryder, even though I am pretty sure that we hijacked this thread from the original poster. I believe it was something about how all UFOs are actually secret government aircraft and not alien spacecraft... I don't remember.

 

And I in turn won’t dismiss one of the two possibilities concerning alien visitation simply because it entails some getting used to on our part. If I had to zone in on the one area of your proposed theory that I think can not be sustained, it would be the notion that ET has no incentive to explore the galaxy. I maintain that until someone can suggest a resolution to the security dilemma I’ve posed a number of times, that ET must explore simply to protect himself, and establish what if any risks are posed to him in the vast unknowns.

Also, with regard to our single data point, the idea of an ET homebody is questionable. We here on Earth have either explored, or are going to, every interesting physical body in the solar system. There appears to be a relationship between a low cost to space exploration and the willingness to do it. (When it becomes cheap enough, out go the probes). I maintain this approach will still be the case when we are able to produce interstellar probes at a small fraction of national GDP.

Skinwalker – Still waiting for that list of evidence you feel must exist in the event of alien visitation.