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Is the truth out there?  

16 members have voted

  1. 1. Does alien life exist?

    • yes
      13
    • no
      3
  2. 2. If you said yes, do you think said aliens are secretly visiting Earth

    • I said I didn't believe
      1
    • yes
      2
    • no
      13
  3. 3. If yes again, do you think they are abducting humans and cows for experimentation?

    • dude, there's no aliens
      1
    • yes
      3
    • no
      12
  4. 4. Yes again, does the government know about it?

    • WTF I SAID NO ALIENS
      2
    • Yes, and they have no power
      2
    • yes, and they are complicit with it
      0
    • no
      12
  5. 5. crazy lights in the sky

    • seen them, with holding judgment on what it was
      2
    • seen them, totally aliens
      0
    • seen them, it's the government
      2
    • never seen them
      12
  6. 6. If aliens are real, what do you think the end game is?

    • Eventually, it will be public knowledge, and they'll be friendly
      8
    • Eventually, it will be public knowledge, and we're screwed
      3
    • They just need help with our genes to rebuild their population
      0
    • God = aliens, we're an ant farm
      5
  7. 7. If aliens are not real, how do you explain lights in the sky?

    • IT'S THE GOVERNMENT
      4
    • natural phenomena that we simply don't understand yet
      11
    • magical faeries, not aliens
      1
  8. 8. If aliens are not real, how do you abductee evidence?

    • sleep paralysis fueled by a cultural knowing of what an alien abduction entails
      9
    • THE GOIVERNMENT
      0
    • some sort of existential/transcendent experience that human science cannot yet define
      7
  9. 9. Fire In The Sky

    • scariest movie ever
      4
    • I can't watch it it gives me nightmares
      0
    • LALALLALALALLA THERE'S NO SUCH MOVIE
      12


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Carrie,

 

Your prose is dazzling and sound, befitting what I understand your profession to be, it is also strong enough to brow beat most people into proclaiming you correct.

 

However there is something important in your argument, something a person as smart as you probably already knows. By arguing percentages of probability you have already acquiesced to the base premise that alien life is possible.

 

Good day.

 

Afterthought: If you are not a lawyer, as I have assumed, then perhaps you should look into becoming one.

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I believe in alien life on other planets but can't even describe it-hence the ALIEN part.

Hmm... well that's funny, MG, it seems just the other day when we were talking about religion, you said:

 

I don't just believe random ideas without a shred of proof! You're making my argument for me! Hell, the only reason I believe in electricity is because most times, when I turn a switch on, a light appears. It may not be definitive proof, but it's SOMETHING. I don't understand believing in something with zero evidence. I don't mean to be insulting, but what kind of idiot believes something with zero proof? Do you see what I mean?

 

Well, it seems to me that you got 3 choices here:

 

a) Give us the proof that aliens exist, because well, in your own words you don't believe ideas without a shred of proof, in fact, in your own words, "what kind of IDIOT" believes something without proof?

 

b) Admit that you are, in fact, by your own standards, an idiot.

 

c) Don't respond, run and hide, and hope I forget about this.

 

 

whatever. YOU choose one of the above. I have some stuff to voice. Get back to me when the 8 ball's gone.

 

Ah!

 

I forgot about option "d." Pretend that you're too cool to get bogged down in an internet fight because you don't wanna admit you've been called out.

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Of course alien life is possible - our mere existence demonstrates that. What are the probabilities, though? Possibilities are endless; probabilities are not.

Why does the fact that abiogenesis happened once necessitate that it can happen again, i.e. that it is repeatable?

 

No. It just demonstrates that it can happen at all. As you've pointed out, we don't know anything about the probabilities. We may be the one in a 10^23 outcome, if that's what the probabilities are. The Drake equation is only intended as a tool for contemplating which factors might play a role in the development of intelligent, technological civilizations. It's definitely being misused when people stick numbers in it.

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OK. I see what you're saying. I thought you were saying that because the fact that life emerged at least once (i.e. on Earth), that the possibility that it can exist elsewhere has to be higher than 0.

 

My point was, that is an un-answerable question unless we either a) understand abiogenesis to the point where we can actually calculate the probability that it is repeatable, or b) we actually discover life on a different planet.

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Guest El Chalupacabra

Until actual proof exists, no amount of calculation of whether or not extra terrestrial life exists really matters all that much, anyway. Irrefutable proof is what is needed, not an equation. So your point, CM, is a moot one, any way you look at it.

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It is absolutely unanswerable - we're on the same page, CM.

 

We know the probability is non-zero. We are here, after all. So the probability of life developing in the Universe is somewhere between 1 in 10^23 (rough estimate) and 1 (every planet would have life). We know it's not 1, though, since we know not every planet in our own solar system has life. Technically, I suppose we don't know it for certain, but there's no indication of life on Mercury or Venus, so those two planets alone rule out a probability of 1.

 

Many things are possible, though. We know that life can exist apart from a photosynthetic base. Chemosynthetic lifeforms and ecosystems have been discovered near black smokers in the mid-Atlantic ridge. They get their energy from heat and chemicals emitted from fumaroles.

 

From a purely energetic perspective, the Galilean moon Europa is subjected to intense tidal forces similar to Io (they are in a orbital resonance, so they both must be feeling the flexing). Imagine the volcanic world of Io covered in miles of water, topped with ice. The existence of chemosynthetic lifeforms here on Earth indicates that it would be possible for life to feed off the energy of Europan underwater volcanoes. For us, it's a mere matter of checking. Then the existence of two life-bearing worlds in one solar system would increase the lower bound of probability to 2 out of 10^23.

 

So the possibilities are endless, but the probabilities are not, and I for one want some hard numbers to crunch.

 

I suppose we could approach this from a purely physics perspective, too. The odds are that life has to be carbon based. No other element is as capable of making a wide variety of bonds with other elements that are energetically favorable for life. The possibility of silicon-based life is often raised, but silicon has fewer options for bonding and is energetically unfavorable (if silicon-based life existed, it would have to be at extreme pressure and temperature conditions, and would still probably be much less active and much simpler than carbon-based life).

 

We have confirmed the existence of a variety of extrasolar planets, all of which can be examined from an energetics perspective to calculate a probability for carbon-based life to exist there. Carbon-life has a particular range of conditions under which it can survive - outside of those conditions it is simply not possible. The bonds won't form or be stable, and the elements would be vaporized or frozen.

 

I suppose I could run through the extrasolar planet database and run some numbers in my spare time. I might find it amusing....

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I believe in alien life on other planets but can't even describe it-hence the ALIEN part.

Hmm... well that's funny, MG, it seems just the other day when we were talking about religion, you said:

 

I don't just believe random ideas without a shred of proof! You're making my argument for me! Hell, the only reason I believe in electricity is because most times, when I turn a switch on, a light appears. It may not be definitive proof, but it's SOMETHING. I don't understand believing in something with zero evidence. I don't mean to be insulting, but what kind of idiot believes something with zero proof? Do you see what I mean?

 

Well, it seems to me that you got 3 choices here:

 

a) Give us the proof that aliens exist, because well, in your own words you don't believe ideas without a shred of proof, in fact, in your own words, "what kind of IDIOT" believes something without proof?

 

b) Admit that you are, in fact, by your own standards, an idiot.

 

c) Don't respond, run and hide, and hope I forget about this.

 

 

whatever. YOU choose one of the above. I have some stuff to voice. Get back to me when the 8 ball's gone.

 

Ah!

 

I forgot about option "d." Pretend that you're too cool to get bogged down in an internet fight because you don't wanna admit you've been called out.

 

No-more option E: Put off explaining the painfully obvious because of a tight schedule and ridiculousness on the side of the troll. I don't have issues when I'm called out-my history here should at LEAST have taught you that. This is simply semantics-poor wording on my part-something I KNOW you're smart enough to figure out, but I'll address this faux-pas this week.

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K-like I said, simple semantics error on my part. Replace the word "believe" with phrases like "It's more likely to me than not that life exists elsewhere". I'm basing my opinion mostly on my own personal feelings. I shouldn't have said that I 'believe' these things-that's too strong a conviction. That's all.

 

I'm impressed with your memory. I don't remember typing most of the **** you find.

 

ALSO: Do you hold yourself to the same standards you expect of others in consistent intellectual honesty? If Y/ who did this to you, who set that standard for you?

 

Just curious.

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Cause half the things you just said are in the poll. SHEESH.

 

And the other half were not. The poll won't allow me to only click half the buttons to submit. I'd have to submit incorrect answers on the other half. I can go back and do this if somebody's grading you on it or something about my filling it out is important.

 

What the **** is up everyone's ass lately?

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Monkeygirl, Carrie prints off our more important posts where we actually express an opinion or position. These are filed away into a "Positions" folder that is filed for each member of the forum. In the event that inconsistency is smelled (even if years later), the "Positions" folder is pulled out and consulted so that you can be torn apart for being an awful human being because your opinion has changed or is illogical. I suppose you've got to do something to fill your time when you're not getting laid.

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K-like I said, simple semantics error on my part. Replace the word "believe" with phrases like "It's more likely to me than not that life exists elsewhere". I'm basing my opinion mostly on my own personal feelings. I shouldn't have said that I 'believe' these things-that's too strong a conviction. That's all.

 

 

Well, OK, even then, your position doesn't really make a lot of sense. In the thread I was quoting from, you spent damn near 3 pages going on and on about how religious people have no evidence at all in what they believe, and it's basically just rooted in emotion or delusions or whatever. And sure, you might have been right, but it's pretty much the height of assholery to then turn around, and say that you think something is more likely than not, based on personal feelings. If that's how you feel, then OK, but then I don't think you have the right to criticize the religious anymore.

 

I still get to though. Because I don't believe in God, and I don't believe in aliens either. I believe in things I have physical evidence of, period.

 

 

ALSO: Do you hold yourself to the same standards you expect of others in consistent intellectual honesty? If Y/ who did this to you, who set that standard for you?

 

Just curious.

 

Damn right I do. If I'm being hypocritical about something, I fully expect to be called out on it. I'm not exactly sure who "did this to me." And besides, why are you talking about me like I have an affliction?

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Because it seems like it's pathological, the way you can't have a human conversation, that anything worth talking about must be done in the fashion of cross-examining a rapist/murderer on top of admonishing everyone like they are the stupidest person you've ever encountered. Even in a topic like this one where there is not enough empirical evidence to form a true opinion, you dive in and feel like you need to WIN as if it is a debate and instead resort to arguing with people based on their rhetoric.

 

Does aspergers translate to writing on the internet? People are not machines, and might very well have different reactions to two topics that follow the same conceptual model, but are different subjectively. I know you think we don't count cause it's the internet, and I've always found it to be part of your charm, but as somebody who posts here for years you don't seem to have an ounce of empathy or friendliness or humanity. For most people, that makes conversating with you entirely not fun, and generally hurtful for absolutely no reason. I think it's funny, and don't take you very seriously. Some people take what you say to heart and you are outright hurtful to them. Maybe that comes with the territory of postic in a space like the Lyceum, but the only person who puts on a pedestal for being a master debate is you.

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