05-13-2005, 06:43 AM | #41 |
An enigma in a conundrum
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Carl Sagan said it best
We live on a hunk of rock and metal that circles a humdrum star that is one of 400 billion other stars that make up the Milky Way Galaxy which is one of billions of other galaxies which make up a universe which may be one of a very large number, perhaps an infinite number, of other universes. That is a perspective on human life and our culture that is well worth pondering.
If we consider the statistics of one, our own case--and take a typical time from the origin of a planetary system to the development of a technical civilization to be 4.6 billion years--what follows? We would not expect civilizations on different worlds to evolve in lock step. Some would reach technical intelligence more quickly, some more slowly, and-- doubtless--some never. But the Milky Way is filled with second- and third-generation stars (that is, those with heavy elements) as old as 10 billion years. So let's imagine two curves: The first is the probable timescale to the evolution of technical intelligence. It starts out very low; by a few billion years it may have a noticeable value; by 5 billion years, it's something like 50 percent; by 10 billion years, maybe it's approaching 100 percent. The second curve is the ages of Sun-like stars, some of which are very young-- they're being born right now--some of which are as old as the Sun, some of which are 10 billion years old.
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05-13-2005, 09:01 AM | #42 | ||
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05-13-2005, 12:44 PM | #43 | |
Half-Elven Princess of Rabbit Trails and Harp-Wielding Administrator (beware the Rubber Chicken of Doom!)
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If we say, "Hey, we're so cool and there's just no way anyone could possibly be as cool as we are - we just rock!" then that would be arrogant. If, however, we say, "Well, so far we just don't see any evidence of other intelligent beings on our level, even though we've been searching for transmissions and looking for signs, so maybe we're the only ones! After all, the odds are simply astronomical (to use a phrase related to the topic ) that evolution could produce things like us even once; expecting more than once is beyond astronomical!" - then I don't think that's arrogant; that's just a plain and unbiased observation of available facts. Do you see what I mean?
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. I should be doing the laundry, but this is MUCH more fun! Ñá ë?* óú éä ïöü Öñ É Þ ð ß ® ç Ã¥ â„¢ æ ♪ ?* "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! ... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside." (from Psalm 84) * * * God rocks! Entmoot : Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I got hooked! Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus! Run the earth and watch the sky ... Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva! |
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05-13-2005, 12:57 PM | #44 |
An enigma in a conundrum
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Indeed it may be ignorant ( resulting from or showing lack of knowledge or intelligence)
as opposed to arrogance.
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05-13-2005, 01:44 PM | #45 | |
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Even if only a micro percentage of a micro percentage of planets in the universe exist under conditions condusive to the development of intelligent life then yer still talking about a number that would be longer then this entire post. Now we may not have all the variables yet but you cant just declare its an impossibility. Thats just plain incorrect.
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05-13-2005, 08:10 PM | #46 |
Half-Elven Princess of Rabbit Trails and Harp-Wielding Administrator (beware the Rubber Chicken of Doom!)
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Spock - we are ALL currently ignorant about the existence of aliens, then, according to your definition. There's nothing wrong with that type of ignorance.
IRex - by "like us", I meant "intelligent at or above our level". There's NO arrogance involved. It would be arrogant if I said we're the best thing that ever existed and ever could exist, and no other being could ever be better, but I never said that. Nor is it necessarily illogical to think there's no other intelligent life around. I seriously doubt your number claim. And I never declared it an impossibility - I said SO FAR we haven't seen any evidence, so MAYBE we're the only ones around with our level of intelligence. No arrogance there - just plain, unbiased observation and conclusion.
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. I should be doing the laundry, but this is MUCH more fun! Ñá ë?* óú éä ïöü Öñ É Þ ð ß ® ç Ã¥ â„¢ æ ♪ ?* "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! ... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside." (from Psalm 84) * * * God rocks! Entmoot : Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I got hooked! Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus! Run the earth and watch the sky ... Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva! |
05-13-2005, 08:22 PM | #47 | |
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I think a more accurate perspective is that we live on a planet that's amazingly and intricately balanced in hundreds of ways, so much that if even one of them changes a bit, like the angle of the planet, all life would cease to exist on the planet. And on this planet are incredibly beautiful and complex living creatures, like hummingbirds and horses and butterflies and rolly-polly bugs, and amazingly complex human beings. We're surrounded by landscapes of stunning beauty and variability, each delicately balanced, from glaciers to rain forests to oceans to giant sequoia forests to deserts to meadows, and tied together into a amazingly balanced functioning whole. We're surrounded by billions of other stars that are breathtakingly beautiful and complex in their own right, and we are blessed with minds that can comprehend and analyze both actual, solid existing things as well as abstract concepts like poetry and the possible existence of other intelligent life.
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. I should be doing the laundry, but this is MUCH more fun! Ñá ë?* óú éä ïöü Öñ É Þ ð ß ® ç Ã¥ â„¢ æ ♪ ?* "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! ... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside." (from Psalm 84) * * * God rocks! Entmoot : Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I got hooked! Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus! Run the earth and watch the sky ... Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva! Last edited by RÃan : 05-13-2005 at 08:24 PM. |
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05-13-2005, 09:34 PM | #48 |
An enigma in a conundrum
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[QUOTE=RÃ*an]Spock - we are ALL currently ignorant about the existence of aliens, then, according to your definition. There's nothing wrong with that type of ignorance.QUOTE]
Precisely my point. BTW, it's Websters definition. Accurate to a fault.
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05-14-2005, 11:05 AM | #49 | |
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As for "why" he might make aliens, let me remind you that there are millions of species on this planet that we don't know why he made.
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." Last edited by Lief Erikson : 05-14-2005 at 11:09 AM. |
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05-14-2005, 11:56 AM | #50 | ||
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Considering the vastness of the universe, statistically spoken it may very well be that somewhere out there there is life, and possibly even life that has reached a level of intelligence that can be compared to ours. However, also considering the vastness of the universe, we might never meet throughout our race's lifetime! I'm guessing the chances of there being intelligent life outside our planet are larger than actually meeting with them. And the chances that we might understand one another are even slimmer.
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05-14-2005, 12:46 PM | #51 |
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don't they go to the movies?
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05-14-2005, 02:50 PM | #52 |
An enigma in a conundrum
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l m a o, good one.
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Vizzini: "HE DIDN'T FALL?! INCONCEIVABLE!!" Inigo: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." |
05-15-2005, 12:10 AM | #53 |
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I have to lean to the side that there is life (more than likely intelligent) somewhere else in the universe. What follows is along the lines of what Spock posted by Carl Sagan.
Take a look at this picture: This is the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. Almost everything there is a galaxy. (There are at least two "local" stars -- you can pick them out by the cross-shaped lines coming out of them.) This picture is a small sampling of the sky (about 1/10 the diameter of the full moon). If this is a tiny sample, think of how many galaxies there are in the sky in total. And if every galaxy is made up of a billion stars... In my mind, there must be something somewhere else. This picture also makes me realize how truly insignificant I am. Now whether anyone else has contacted us... I'm still undecided.
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05-15-2005, 01:16 AM | #54 | |
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05-15-2005, 09:11 AM | #55 |
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Try CS Lewis' OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET, PERELANDRA, and THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH for a view of the Universe that is capable of embracing the vastnesses of the Solar System and multiplicity of beings. And recall that it was quite well known that the size of the earth in relation to the cosmos was that of an infinitesimal point in medieval astronomy.
Flatland exists in knowledge of history and not just geography or astronomy! BoP, I am delighted to see you back on the board! Did you just get back from an intergalactic tour or are you messing with the infinite improbability drive again?
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05-15-2005, 06:59 PM | #56 | |
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05-16-2005, 04:51 PM | #57 | ||
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Why would it make you come to the conclusion you're truly insignificant? What is your reasoning to support that conclusion? (unless you're only talking truly insignificant as far as the relative number of atoms contained in your body ... but that's not important, IMO)
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. I should be doing the laundry, but this is MUCH more fun! Ñá ë?* óú éä ïöü Öñ É Þ ð ß ® ç Ã¥ â„¢ æ ♪ ?* "How lovely are Thy dwelling places, O Lord of hosts! ... For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand outside." (from Psalm 84) * * * God rocks! Entmoot : Veni, vidi, velcro - I came, I saw, I got hooked! Ego numquam pronunciare mendacium, sed ego sum homo indomitus! Run the earth and watch the sky ... Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva! Last edited by RÃan : 05-16-2005 at 04:55 PM. |
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05-16-2005, 09:31 PM | #58 |
Elf Lord
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Size . . . is relative. Strictly relative. Extremely strictly relative. I read in biology that each of us is like an entire Planet Earth in and of him or herself. Each of us hosts billions and billions of living creatures. To them a single hair on my arm is like a mighty mountain, packed with other organisms that live differently and eat differently. A week or two ago, in my prayers I thanked him for making people so massive.
Size is dependent upon perspective. From the perspective of an ant, what do you think a rolly polly bug would be like? Enormous. Far larger then an elephant would be to us. A monolithic creature that roams the same world as the ant. I don't think that we really experience the same world as the ant. Imagine a world full of craters and hills at every turn, with massive tunnels and caves everywhere and blades of grass the size of skyscrapers, a place where a single raindrop is the size of a boulder and can make you struggle for your life (not to mention your way of thinking and reason for existing would be utterly different). Intelligence is also relative. We have been made "a little lower then the angels," but our intelligence is lower then the meanest insect when compared to God's. Our intellects, on the other hand, when compared to those of every other known species of living organisms, are monstrous in comparison. Our bodies are huge. They are huge and miniscule. They are both at the same time. There is no argument for our being insignificant .
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
05-16-2005, 11:55 PM | #59 | ||
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"If the giving of information is to be the cure of your inquisitiveness, I shall spend all the rest of my days in answering you." Gandalf to Pippin Psalm 107:31 |
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05-17-2005, 01:00 AM | #60 | |||
Elf Lord
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Another thing I don't understand is how you can be a Christian and think that you're not significant. God has called us co-creators with him. Quote:
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Streets of gold. (looks very greedy) Bother inflation .
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." Last edited by Lief Erikson : 05-17-2005 at 01:01 AM. |
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