Support NeoGAF

[MilkyJoe]

Maybe they would have info on PS5?

Got your back, son.

Spoiler

9.2tflops

 

[mango drank]

There's a good book by one of the higher-ups at SETI, called The Eerie Silence, that tries to guess at why we haven't detected any alien signals yet. He says it's possible for intelligent life to be rare enough that only one race exists at a time, and so for those 100k-1m years, that intelligent race is all alone in the universe. And/or intelligent races can exist at the same time, but they're so far apart (either on opposite sides of a given galaxy, or in separate galaxies millions-billions of light years apart) that they'll never detect one another and never interact.

Sad possibility. I want to believe.

 

[MilkyJoe]

There's a good book by one of the higher-ups at SETI, called The Eerie Silence, that tries to guess at why we haven't detected any alien signals yet. He says it's possible for intelligent life to be rare enough that only one race exists at a time, and so for those 100k-1m years, that intelligent race is all alone in the universe. And/or intelligent races can exist at the same time, but they're so far apart (either on opposite sides of a given galaxy, or in separate galaxies millions-billions of light years apart) that they'll never detect one another and never interact.

Sad possibility. I want to believe.

Don't worry, son. I know for an absolute fact it's real.

 

[MadAnon]

Did you even read the patent? The detail it goes into is way beyond something theoretical.
The patent actually explains what gravity is and how it can be created in basic scientific experiments by spinning objects of a certain shape along the same axis. By reading this patent you'll actually know more about gravity than most physics scientists...
Also it is theorised that to make a wormhole you need to bend space using gravity. Wormhole travel is FTL. It isn't mentioned in this patent though.

I read the patent. It actually does a really bad job at explaining what gravity is. Graviton is only theorised. His whole patent is based on assumption that gravitons and their properties are real. Besides, there's nothing about traveling faster than speed of light in this patent. He just mentions few times that this could be used in advanced propulsion systems and that's about it. There's nothing about how exactly it would work.

Lots of extraordinary, theoretical claims, 0 proof. If his claims were real, these patents wouldn't even be publicly available but under Invention Secrecy Act because they involve some major National security risks.

 

[Smaller than Atom]

Nothing with mass can travel at the speed of light, and even if one could somehow, the vast emptiness of space would still take a ton of time to travel. So I highly doubt interstellar travel is possible. Also, there is no objective empirical evidence for extraterristrials. One can speculate but being there no proof, there isn't really any reason to believe unfortunately.

That said though I think It would be interesting if such things were possible. Physics, biology, and possibly even metaphysics would be effected. But things like "UFOS and aliens" are almost certainly sci-fi, I do find it fun to think about however.

Also, if we start the 'there must be aliens because space is so large' argument, then the simulation theory odds grow too much.

 

[SLoWMoTIoN]

That last line is the daftest thing people ever say in regards to aliens. We have space craft and country destroying weapons on this resource rich planet.

Technically we had "decommissioned" decades old space crafts that can't get very far and a government backed company experimenting on space travel. Keyword experimenting. Also we have weapons that can damage the land and yeah wipe us out but even all the weapons in the world can't actually destroy it like in those old Looney cartoons.

 

[VlaudTheImpaler]

Just wanted to say that if you guys are into this stuff, Hellier on amazon Prime is almost a must watch.

It's an investigatory docuseries about a group of people who stumble upon something and try to investigate the best ways they know how… It is VERY well shot and produced for coming from a bunch of nobodies. I'd implore you to just dive in without spoiling anything.

 

[DragoonKain]

You're entirely missing the point.

Well then, explain.

 

[MilkyJoe]

Well then, explain.

Maybe Monday, I had to work because of the corona virus nonsense

 

[infinitys_7th]

There's a good book by one of the higher-ups at SETI, called The Eerie Silence, that tries to guess at why we haven't detected any alien signals yet. He says it's possible for intelligent life to be rare enough that only one race exists at a time, and so for those 100k-1m years, that intelligent race is all alone in the universe. And/or intelligent races can exist at the same time, but they're so far apart (either on opposite sides of a given galaxy, or in separate galaxies millions-billions of light years apart) that they'll never detect one another and never interact.

Sad possibility. I want to believe.

SETI has always come off as very disingenuous to me. Their work has been, by any standard, insignificant in terms of doing a brute force search (i.e. not controlled experiments), but they act like they have sufficient data to make general statements and are very dogmatic about the whole thing probably being pointless.

TBH, any of our opinions has about as much evidence behind it as theirs, relative to the broadest of the Milky Way or even universe. A few million stars out of hundreds of billions in our galaxy alone, a tiny band of detection. . .they may as well have just searched a cup of sand on a beach for shells and then decided there probably are none, all while wearing a blindfold.

 

[Ikutachi]

I think we're alone as far as human level intelligence goes. Yes, I'm dismissing all alien/UFO cases.

 

[DragoonKain]

Maybe Monday, I had to work because of the corona virus nonsense

No worries. Just wanted to say if the point you were trying to make is that earth is an interesting place, I would agree with you, I just think it’s highly probable there are planets out there far more interesting and if aliens had to choose which to go to, they’d choose one more advanced than them and interesting to them. Just like if we had to choose, we’d choose one more advanced and interesting than us.

Not that some planet with prehistoric dinosaur-like creatures wouldn’t be interesting to us. Of course it would. It would be fucking amazing. But if we were gonna pick a planet to visit, I think we’d pick one with great technological achievements and advancements so it could actually benefit us and we could learn from them. And I think aliens would do the same.

I’m obviously throwing out any scenarios of randomness, I guess it’s possible an alien species could stumble upon us accidentally, but just by the sheer number of planets out there, trillions of planets, I think if aliens ever came here it’s so unlikely that it would be random, we’d have been specifically targeted as a destination point.

 

[Flintty]

I saw a UFO once and I’m convinced is was something technologically superior to anything that can be human made, and it certainly wasn’t a natural phenomenon. My co worker saw it too and we were both just ‘what the fuck’. I was in the guard service at the time and looked up policy and it said we should report it to the RAF desk officer, which I did just to see what would happen. Our manager thought we were having a laugh when I submitted the occurrence report.

Anyway, I had a response from the RAF saying there were no other reports and they don’t investigate UFOs and that was that.

They’re out there

 

[President Evil]

My cousin and I saw a silver craft in the sky near the treeline close to my house. It moved slowly and then disappeared over the trees. Freaked me out. I firmly believe in UFOs.

 

[mango drank]

SETI has always come off as very disingenuous to me. Their work has been, by any standard, insignificant in terms of doing a brute force search (i.e. not controlled experiments), but they act like they have sufficient data to make general statements and are very dogmatic about the whole thing probably being pointless.

Also, we Earthlings are making a lot of assumptions about alien signals. We're looking for radio emissions, assuming aliens would use them because 1) we use them and 2) we assume aliens would use them to be backwards-compatible with young species like us. But it's possible alien races have progressed to using completely different mediums / technologies to communicate (weird exotic stuff we can't conceive of), and that they don't care about being backwards-compatible with anything, and don't care about broadcasting their presence anyway.

I guess it's fine to try radio--why not, might as well, what else are we going to do beyond what we already know? But even if SETI isn't being as rigorous as possible, maybe the search for signals is just plain hard because alien technology moves so fast. There could be some invisible galactic internet connecting super-advanced civilizations passing right through Earth right now, and we don't even know about it.

 

[V4skunk]

I read the patent. It actually does a really bad job at explaining what gravity is. Graviton is only theorised. His whole patent is based on assumption that gravitons and their properties are real. Besides, there's nothing about traveling faster than speed of light in this patent. He just mentions few times that this could be used in advanced propulsion systems and that's about it. There's nothing about how exactly it would work.

Lots of extraordinary, theoretical claims, 0 proof. If his claims were real, these patents wouldn't even be publicly available but under Invention Secrecy Act because they involve some major National security risks.

You didn't read the patent or my post.
I even said the patent mentions nothing about FTL.
Reading comprehension FTW.
Also the scientific explanation for gravity isn't what the patent talks about. According to mainstream science there are no lab experiments that can be done to produce detectable gravity waves. Yet patent says other wise.
At the end of the day I believe US Navy patents over mainstream lie science.

 

[Airola]

If this were a highly sophisticated simulation, then literally anything is possible. We live, work, and play with one set of physical rules that guide our reality. Those rules, we already know, can vary or change as you leave our planet and travel across space. There is still far more that we don't even know, and then there's always the possibility that the rules can be switched on and off. I wouldn't even rule out all of natural science as we've come to know it suddenly, one day, being switched off or replaced in some ultra rare universal event. I've heard of very similar possible events that could impact our planet that could render our technologies, and thus our society, unusable and practically send us back hundreds of years technologically.

The simulation theory is odd to me.

If we are in a some sort of a computer simulation, and that would explain our existence, then how did the computer we are a program in become into existence? Computers are material, physical things made by biological beings. So that whole scenario of some other universe building a computer and programming a simulation would also need an explanation for its existence.

If it wouldn't need an explanation and if the reality there wouldn't be bound to same kind of laws of our reality has and if all sorts of weird things that aren't possible here but would be possible there, then why even imagine there being a computer with a simulation running in the first place? It could then be anything else. Just a mind that thinks us into existence. Which would be pretty much what God has been thought to be.

 

[Karma Jawa]

The simulation theory is odd to me.

If we are in a some sort of a computer simulation, and that would explain our existence, then how did the computer we are a program in become into existence? Computers are material, physical things made by biological beings. So that whole scenario of some other universe building a computer and programming a simulation would also need an explanation for its existence.

If it wouldn't need an explanation and if the reality there wouldn't be bound to same kind of laws of our reality has and if all sorts of weird things that aren't possible here but would be possible there, then why even imagine there being a computer with a simulation running in the first place? It could then be anything else. Just a mind that thinks us into existence. Which would be pretty much what God has been thought to be.

Agreed. Ultimately we just don’t know, and possibly never will. String theory, multi verses, black holes leading to various Big Bangs...we really don’t know. We can theorise, speculate, and run simulations. We don’t even know if dark matter exists, and that’s speculated to make up 85% of all matter in the universe.

This post isn’t anti-science by any stretch. Science constantly pushes the boundaries of our understanding, and if anything, scientists have shown how the universe is more mysterious than we thought.

As for aliens and UFOs...well UFOs obviously exist because there have been plenty of flying objects that haven’t been identified. I don’t think they’re piloted by little green men though.

I’d be very surprised if there wasn’t life on other planets. In fact I suspect it’s relatively common. But it’s more likely to be plants or bacteria. If there’s intelligent life, how do we define it? There are plenty of intelligent animals on Earth. They just do what they need to do I need order to survive/thrive in their environment. Actively looking to make contact with alien life could be incredibly stupid.

Time is the other big factor. Look at where our species was just 150 years ago. We couldn’t even fly. It would take a considerable number of coincidences for two isolated civilisations to evolve, crossover with technological developments, and somehow find each other.

 

[MadAnon]

You didn't read the patent or my post.
I even said the patent mentions nothing about FTL.
Reading comprehension FTW.
Also the scientific explanation for gravity isn't what the patent talks about. According to mainstream science there are no lab experiments that can be done to produce detectable gravity waves. Yet patent says other wise.
At the end of the day I believe US Navy patents over mainstream lie science.

I said "Unless we find a way to travel faster than speed of light, interstellar travel in realistic time frames seem far fetched". You linked me this patent. So who has a bad reading comprehension here!?

Patents can say a lot of things. Where are the proof in those patents that he has replicated any of it in lab experiments? It's actually another red flag and makes you wonder why this patent was approved in the first place. And I asked which part explains its application for propulsion and how? Why are you doging this question? You just tell me that I didn't read it and pretend you won the argument. In reality I read it and there's nothing explained about this propulsion technique.

So you believe Navy patents but don't realise they are based on several mainstream lie science theories? So gravitational waves are mainstream lie science? The same should apply to this patent then.

In theory a large stone being vibrated would produce gravitational waves but it's impossible to detect such tiny ripples in spacetime. We needed massive black hole collisions and neutron stars spinning to detect any kind of gravitational waves but you want me to believe that this guy just patented a gravitational wave generator which has insane practical applications. Whatever...

 

[DESTROYA]

I saw a UFO once and I’m convinced is was something technologically superior to anything that can be human made, and it certainly wasn’t a natural phenomenon. My co worker saw it too and we were both just ‘what the fuck’. I was in the guard service at the time and looked up policy and it said we should report it to the RAF desk officer, which I did just to see what would happen. Our manager thought we were having a laugh when I submitted the occurrence report.

Anyway, I had a response from the RAF saying there were no other reports and they don’t investigate UFOs and that was that.

They’re out there

My cousin and I saw a silver craft in the sky near the treeline close to my house. It moved slowly and then disappeared over the trees. Freaked me out. I firmly believe in UFOs.

See here’s the thing people say these things but offer no proof of it happening, I’m not picking out your particular cases but taking a picture or something in this day and age where every cellphone has a camera would go a long way.

 

[Airola]

I’d be very surprised if there wasn’t life on other planets. In fact I suspect it’s relatively common. But it’s more likely to be plants or bacteria. If there’s intelligent life, how do we define it? There are plenty of intelligent animals on Earth. They just do what they need to do I need order to survive/thrive in their environment. Actively looking to make contact with alien life could be incredibly stupid.

Time is the other big factor. Look at where our species was just 150 years ago. We couldn’t even fly. It would take a considerable number of coincidences for two isolated civilisations to evolve, crossover with technological developments, and somehow find each other.

Exactly. Looking at how long this planet has been around and how, out of millions or billions or trillions of species, only we have been able to even dream of flying to Mars. And even within our lifespan this has happened just "a few" years ago. So lets say it's likely there is life on other planets. But how likely it would be that in those planets there would've been this one species out of trillion different ones who manage to evolve into creatures who both can build complex things out of metal and have the dream to go to outer space and then be able to fulfill that dream. We don't even currently know if it really is ever possible to go and live in Mars, let alone in further planets.

That said, I kinda think that it's even more likely that the aliens are actually creatures from this planet who maybe were mostly killed off by the big flood but have continued living somewhere hidden from us (maybe even underwater somewhere). I mean, we kinda have more evidence for a theory like that than evidence for alien life in outer space who visit our planet from time to time. There's really nothing that would require aliens, who might even capture us from time to time, to originate from some distant galaxy far away. They could just as well be from Earth. It would remove the need for some FTL space travel and it would still fit with whatever Area 51 conspiracies there are. They are not hiding creatures from outer space but they are hiding some old-ass people and technology from Atlantis or whatever. It owuld explain those weird findings of ancient technology. Why would they have to be exactly from outer space when they could just as well be from Earth? How about those sightings of UFOs flying straight down in the ocean? Well, there's their current home. And they don't have to be creatures from outer space who have taken Earth's oceans as their hiding places but that could just be the place they've been for the past tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years.

Not that I really believe in that either, but it's an interesting theory that feels just as plausible, if not even more plausible, than things travelling from other galaxies to here.

 

[Airola]

See here’s the thing people say these things but offer no proof of it happening, I’m not picking out your particular cases but taking a picture or something in this day and age where every cellphone has a camera would go a long way.

Honestly though, it's the same as asking God to show up now so we would take videos and have undeniable proof of its existence. People would dismiss it as fake. Hell, there are a lot of people who don't believe the moon landing videos are real. Today, when we can make photorealistic video effects pretty easily, people would call them out as fakes even more.

It's actually pretty ironic how at the same time the advancement of technology would make it easier to prove paranormal or extraterrestrial phenomenon real and would make it also easier to call them fake and possibly even cause people to disbelieve it even more.

 

[Romulus]

What I find incredibly frustrating is people who really think what we can see and hear around is all there is. Scientists are just beginning to understand the basic fundamentals if the universe and speculating its size, yet theres guys in this thread working 9-5 jobs proclaiming they've got it all figured out. "Ain't nothing out there." Lol. Good guess. We're blind and deaf to 99% of the universe, but ol' John knows everything. Primitive asf thought process. Comparatively, it's not much different than the Europeans, Chinese, etc, all thinking there weren't other continents with humans on them. Just shows how fucking stupid we are. Suddenly we get radio waves and telescopes that can't see shit, but somehow we're ignorant enough to make wild claims that's its ALL empty.

 

[Darkmakaimura]

What I find incredibly frustrating is people who really think what we can see and hear around is all there is. Scientists are just beginning to understand the basic fundamentals if the universe and speculating its size, yet theres guys in this thread working 9-5 jobs proclaiming they've got it all figured out. "Ain't nothing out there." Lol. Good guess. We're blind and deaf to 99% of the universe, but ol' John knows everything. Primitive asf thought process. Comparatively, it's not much different than the Europeans, Chinese, etc, all thinking there weren't other continents with humans on them. Just shows how fucking stupid we are. Suddenly we get radio waves and telescopes that can see shit, but somehow we're ignorant enough to make wild claims that's its ALL empty.

On OldGAF I got laughed at by people when I once said I like to keep an "open mind". One poster literally linked me a fucking multi-page thesis on what having an open mind means and why I shouldn't. That was the one of the reasons for my exodus in 2014.

 

[Smaller than Atom]

The simulation theory is odd to me.

If we are in a some sort of a computer simulation, and that would explain our existence, then how did the computer we are a program in become into existence? Computers are material, physical things made by biological beings. So that whole scenario of some other universe building a computer and programming a simulation would also need an explanation for its existence.

If it wouldn't need an explanation and if the reality there wouldn't be bound to same kind of laws of our reality has and if all sorts of weird things that aren't possible here but would be possible there, then why even imagine there being a computer with a simulation running in the first place? It could then be anything else. Just a mind that thinks us into existence. Which would be pretty much what God has been thought to be.

That's just it. We can sim on computers. How many computers per person in your household? How many planets with intelligent life? Computers for all them.... etc. The odds are greater that this is a sim more than not sadly.

 

[Smaller than Atom]

What I find incredibly frustrating is people who really think what we can see and hear around is all there is. Scientists are just beginning to understand the basic fundamentals if the universe and speculating its size, yet theres guys in this thread working 9-5 jobs proclaiming they've got it all figured out. "Ain't nothing out there." Lol. Good guess. We're blind and deaf to 99% of the universe, but ol' John knows everything. Primitive asf thought process. Comparatively, it's not much different than the Europeans, Chinese, etc, all thinking there weren't other continents with humans on them. Just shows how fucking stupid we are. Suddenly we get radio waves and telescopes that can't see shit, but somehow we're ignorant enough to make wild claims that's its ALL empty.

No. Physicists will likely agree we are all alone - professor Brian Cox.
We are likely in a simulation - Neil deGrasse Tyson.

They are not wild claims. You're the one who is misinformed. Sorry.

 

[infinitys_7th]

No. Physicists will likely agree we are all alone - professor Brian Cox.
We are likely in a simulation - Neil deGrasse Tyson.

They are not wild claims. You're the one who is misinformed. Sorry.

They have no evidence to back up their claims.

 

[Airola]

What I find incredibly frustrating is people who really think what we can see and hear around is all there is.
.......
Primitive asf thought process

Meh, trying to make the other party feel bad by claiming their thoughts are primitive or selfish (like some claim when talking about this subject) doesn't really work. Sure, some might want to think "hey, I don't want to be primitive or selfish" and would change their mind because of that, but it really isn't a good argument.

Also, lots of people who don't believe in alien spacecrafts might still believe in angels or demons or ghosts. So it's not really about thinking what we can see and hear around is all there is.

The god tier theory anyway is the interdimensional spirit aliens theory instead of biological regular alien theory, which is like the ultimate in believing there is way more out there than what we can see or hear

That's just it. We can sim on computers. How many computers per person in your household? How many planets with intelligent life? Computers for all them.... etc. The odds are greater that this is a sim more than not sadly.

Would their world be simulated too? If not, then there's no reason for our world to have to be simulated either. In the group of a simulation simulating a simulation simulating a simulation simulating a simulation etc one has to be the original world that isn't a simulation. If one of those worlds can be that, then our world can be that too.

There's no reason why our world would have to be a simulation but their world wouldn't have to be. And if their world can be a non-simulation, why our world couldn't be one too?

 

[infinitys_7th]

Meh, trying to make the other party feel bad by claiming their thoughts are primitive or selfish (like some claim when talking about this subject) doesn't really work. Sure, some might want to think "hey, I don't want to be primitive or selfish" and would change their mind because of that, but it really isn't a good argument.

Also, lots of people who don't believe in alien spacecrafts might still believe in angels or demons or ghosts. So it's not really about thinking what we can see and hear around is all there is.

The god tier theory anyway is the interdimensional spirit aliens theory instead of biological regular alien theory, which is like the ultimate in believing there is way more out there than what we can see or hear



Would their world be simulated too? If not, then there's no reason for our world to have to be simulated either. In the group of a simulation simulating a simulation simulating a simulation simulating a simulation etc one has to be the original world that isn't a simulation. If one of those worlds can be that, then our world can be that too.

There's no reason why our world would have to be a simulation but their world wouldn't have to be. And if their world can be a non-simulation, why our world couldn't be one too?

It ironically has the same implications as the Many Worlds theory that most of these same people shit on.

 

[Romulus]

Meh, trying to make the other party feel bad by claiming their thoughts are primitive or selfish (like some claim when talking about this subject) doesn't really work. Sure, some might want to think "hey, I don't want to be primitive or selfish" and would change their mind because of that, but it really isn't a good argument.

Huh? You really think I'm trying to change minds of people that declare unequivocally that the universe is empty? Lol. If anything it just frustrates me to hear. Those people don't feel bad about anything because they already have it figured out. So, thats impossible.

 

[Karma Jawa]

No. Physicists will likely agree we are all alone - professor Brian Cox.
We are likely in a simulation - Neil deGrasse Tyson.

They are not wild claims. You're the one who is misinformed. Sorry.

If this was a simulation (it’s not) the questions would still be the same. It’s just Plato’s cave all over again.

Personally I think the answers are beyond our comprehension. We think in terms of cause and effect. We will never get our heads around the idea of existence not having a beginning. The closest we’ve come is the notion that nothingness by necessity generates something (which we’ve subsequently given labels to the almost infinite variations of ‘stuff’ constituting that ‘something’. But it’s iffy at best.

Our existence could be a fart from a space elephant created by a simulation, dreamt by a space cloud that came into existence by being painted by the original Weird Al, but as humans we will always ask ‘what came before?’

We can’t comprehend it.

Think of a tree.

Think of four trees.

Think of 85 million trees.

You can’t. Just as we can’t think outside of causality. Yet existence doesn’t make any sense unless it isn’t causal. Reality is a paradox according to all human logic.’Being’ is the greatest mystery there is, and for me the most we can do as a species is determine the limits of our capacity to comprehend it.

 

[Smaller than Atom]

Meh, trying to make the other party feel bad by claiming their thoughts are primitive or selfish (like some claim when talking about this subject) doesn't really work. Sure, some might want to think "hey, I don't want to be primitive or selfish" and would change their mind because of that, but it really isn't a good argument.

Also, lots of people who don't believe in alien spacecrafts might still believe in angels or demons or ghosts. So it's not really about thinking what we can see and hear around is all there is.

The god tier theory anyway is the interdimensional spirit aliens theory instead of biological regular alien theory, which is like the ultimate in believing there is way more out there than what we can see or hear



Would their world be simulated too? If not, then there's no reason for our world to have to be simulated either. In the group of a simulation simulating a simulation simulating a simulation simulating a simulation etc one has to be the original world that isn't a simulation. If one of those worlds can be that, then our world can be that too.

There's no reason why our world would have to be a simulation but their world wouldn't have to be. And if their world can be a non-simulation, why our world couldn't be one too?

Yes you're right. But the odds are against that. That's all really. And sadly.

 

[Airola]

Huh? You really think I'm trying to change minds of people that declare unequivocally that the universe is empty? Lol. If anything it just frustrates me to hear. Those people don't feel bad about anything because they already have it figured out. So, thats impossible.

It goes the other way around too. There seem to be people who think it's impossible the universe is empty from life, and they seem to have figured it all out too.

 

[mango drank]

How about those sightings of UFOs flying straight down in the ocean? Well, there's their current home. And they don't have to be creatures from outer space who have taken Earth's oceans as their hiding places but that could just be the place they've been for the past tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years.

 

[Flintty]

See here’s the thing people say these things but offer no proof of it happening, I’m not picking out your particular cases but taking a picture or something in this day and age where every cellphone has a camera would go a long way.

Totally understandable.
I too would be sceptical and was previously with grainy footage.

this happened at half five in the morning in 2005 before camera phones were really a big thing. it was over very quickly and we never thought about recording it. We were just confused and in awe.

I have no evidence but I know what I saw. I don’t believe much unless I see it with my own eyes. I saw this but have no way of proving it
But it’s important to me that I know there’s some weird unexplainable shit out there. It’s quite a liberating feeling to be honest.

 

[mango drank]

We think in terms of cause and effect. We will never get our heads around the idea of existence not having a beginning.
...
Just as we can’t think outside of causality. Yet existence doesn’t make any sense unless it isn’t causal. Reality is a paradox according to all human logic.’Being’ is the greatest mystery there is, and for me the most we can do as a species is determine the limits of our capacity to comprehend it.

Could be nested block time. Doesn't necessarily have to be simulations. Think of a DVD or a movie file on your computer. It has a timeline. If you watch it the way it's meant to be watched, it seems as if its timeline is progressing and its version of time is "passing." But in your context outside that time block, you can rewind, pause, not play it at all, etc. The time block just exists, everything within it predetermined. And outside that time block, there's a separate, parent time block (yours), where time also seems to pass for you, but who knows what grand-parent context you're trapped inside of?

Of course, is there a main originating time block? What's that like? What's the master ancestor context? Is that one not subject to cause and effect? Is it governed by some exotic and unrecognizable logic? Not knowing the ultimate nature of reality is hella frustrating.

 

[Karma Jawa]

Could be nested block time. Doesn't necessarily have to be simulations. Think of a DVD or a movie file on your computer. It has a timeline. If you watch it the way it's meant to be watched, it seems as if its timeline is progressing and its version of time is "passing." But in your context outside that time block, you can rewind, pause, not play it at all, etc. The time block just exists, everything within it predetermined. And outside that time block, there's a separate, parent time block (yours), where time also seems to pass for you, but who knows what grand-parent context you're trapped inside of?

Of course, is there a main originating time block? What's that like? What's the master ancestor context? Is that one not subject to cause and effect? Is it governed by some exotic and unrecognizable logic? Not knowing the ultimate nature of reality is hella frustrating.

That’s the crux of it. It doesn’t matter if it’s a frame-tale within a frame-tale within another frame-tale. What matters is what they’re within, and whether whatever that is is within anything else, and so on.

We know that existence exists. We know that something simply is. What we can’t wrap our minds around is the idea that ‘nothing’ cannot exist, which is ironic as that’s pretty much the definition of nothingness. It’s ‘no thing’. It was never here. There’s always been something, but our brains aren’t wired to comprehend that. Even if the universe is dying, it didn’t just appear on a whim out of nowhere.

Ultimately our understanding of basic physics must be fundamentally wrong in some way, because something cannot come from nothing, and there can be no such thing as an absolute beginning. God? Where did they come from? And where did that come from? And so on to infinity.

The more logical answer is that we aren’t capable of knowing the origins of existence (if indeed there ever was an origin) due to physical and mental limitations.

We live on a giant ball flying through space, circling an enormous ball of fire in the middle of nowhere, whilst arguing over YouTube comments. Reality is insanity.

 

[Romulus]

It goes the other way around too. There seem to be people who think it's impossible the universe is empty from life, and they seem to have figured it all out too.

Maybe they're just looking at probability? Maybe you're confusing that with the arrogance I'm speaking of. I'm sitting on a rock that produced life, and they're are billions more in goldilock zone that we can't see. I don't think most people can even comprehend a billion of anything in the first place. Yet they're arrogant enough to declare billions of planets over the course of 14 billion years, void. What kind of brain processes like that? I know, most of them

I think it's just the human psyche. Dozens of religions have this similar story about how special we are, that they're culture is the center of the universe. Lol. It's just what we do for comfort. Europeans were blown away to see other humans existed outside Europe even though conditions were even more ripe for life in the Americas.

 

[Badlucktroll]

Nothing with mass can travel at the speed of light, and even if one could somehow, the vast emptiness of space would still take a ton of time to travel. So I highly doubt interstellar travel is possible. Also, there is no objective empirical evidence for extraterristrials. One can speculate but being there no proof, there isn't really any reason to believe unfortunately.

That said though I think It would be interesting if such things were possible. Physics, biology, and possibly even metaphysics would be effected. But things like "UFOS and aliens" are almost certainly sci-fi, I do find it fun to think about however.

Humans will probably get to alpha centauri at some point in the far future.

 

[zombrex]

Consider the following. The first exoplanet was only confirmed discovered in 1992. Since then we have discovered over 4000 and for many we know details about temperatures, oxygen, carbon dioxide, liquid water, ice, gravity, orbits and more. This is only after 28 years of data. Our discoveries have grown exponentially and could grow even faster if money and human resources were not a factor.

Now imagine civilisations more advanced than us by 100, 1000 or even 10,000 years. Their knowledge about planets that could support life would be immense and they could easily identify us a a candidate if they observed us. It could also be within their means to visit and study us.

Right now I think they are already vising and studying us. It fits the M.O of so many sightings like alien beings landing in ships and taking samples of soil or abducting people to examine. They don't want to hurt us just learn about what we do and our planet.

 

[infinitys_7th]

Also, there is no objective empirical evidence for extraterristrials. One can speculate but being there no proof, there isn't really any reason to believe unfortunately.

Humans existing and the very large number of similar worlds in the universe are reasons to support the belief. Very simple inductive logic.

There is an odd fallacy that believing something exists is less correct than believing something does not exist, given rationale for both beliefs. The rationale for nonexistence is that certain unquantifiable probabilities are sufficiently small to overcome the large number of planets. As they are unquantifiable, their selected values are just a matter of faith.

 

[MadAnon]

Humans existing and the very large number of similar worlds in the universe are reasons to support the belief. Very simple inductive logic.

There is an odd fallacy that believing something exists is less correct than believing something does not exist, given rationale for both beliefs. The rationale for nonexistence is that certain unquantifiable probabilities are sufficiently small to overcome the large number of planets. As they are unquantifiable, their selected values are just a matter of faith.

Number of galaxies, stars, planets is only one part of equation. What are the chances trillions of atoms, molecules arrange in a way to form the first bacteria and then successfully evolve into what we are today?

 

[infinitys_7th]

What are the chances trillions of atoms molecules arrange in a way to form the first bacteria and then successfully evolve into what we are today?

I don't know and neither does anyone else. Any value assigned to it is purely a guess without any way to quantify it or test it.

Without that, "expert" opinion matters little because they are just advancing opinion as hard fact.

 

[infinitys_7th]

Just wanted to say that if you guys are into this stuff, Hellier on amazon Prime is almost a must watch.

It's an investigatory docuseries about a group of people who stumble upon something and try to investigate the best ways they know how… It is VERY well shot and produced for coming from a bunch of nobodies. I'd implore you to just dive in without spoiling anything.

I'm getting some "The Whisperer in Darkness" vibes from this story. Seems entertaining if anything, although them opening up with a monologue about synchronicity is a turn off.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Don't forget Ancient Aliens is in their 15th season airing on the History Channel (philo) I hope you guys are watching this season.

 

[Darkmakaimura]

Humans existing and the very large number of similar worlds in the universe are reasons to support the belief. Very simple inductive logic.

There is an odd fallacy that believing something exists is less correct than believing something does not exist, given rationale for both beliefs. The rationale for nonexistence is that certain unquantifiable probabilities are sufficiently small to overcome the large number of planets. As they are unquantifiable, their selected values are just a matter of faith.

And the fact thay scientists say the building blocks of life are everywhere.

 

[Thurible]

Humans will probably get to alpha centauri at some point in the far future.

Alpha centauri is over 4.3 light years away. It would likely take a few hundred years for a probe to reach proxima centuari which is the closest of the stars (from what I understand).

Also, if we start the 'there must be aliens because space is so large' argument, then the simulation theory odds grow too much.

One could state that that 'space is large, therefore extraterristrials', but that really is just a matter of faith. Perhaps it may seem statistically likely, but we have absolutely no idea if earth is an outlier or not. There still is no objective proof with that statement.

Humans existing and the very large number of similar worlds in the universe are reasons to support the belief. Very simple inductive logic.

Are there similar worlds, and even if so, does that necessitate the existence of life? We have charted some exo-planets that may have characteristics that could potentially support life, but we have no idea what those planets are actually like. Earth could still be unique in that regard, so we don't know. A lot of science (especially with unbelievably far and unreachable objects that we are fortunate to just be able to find a way to observe) takes educated guesses.

I have to disagree on the second half of your post. Though my position that 'aliens probably don't exist' does take some faith as does the 'aliens probably exist' position, the rationale for non-existence is stronger in this case as there is no actual proof for their existence.



Don't mean to be rude. I personally find this topic fun and I think it would be cool if aliens existed and people could travel around the universe . Space is such a vast and mysterious place, which just makes it ever more enchanting as it captures the human imagination. Vast swathes of nothingness with strange heavenly bodies dispersed within. The potential seems limitless, like anything could be possible. I hope the time to come you futurists envision with space travel and the like comes to pass, I just have several misgivings and doubts based on the things we know.

 

[Liljagare]

I think plenty of stuff can be explained by man made things:









Theese are projects we are shown, I'd wager top secret projects are even more amazing, we have several flying saucer projects from the 60's from several nations, etc.



As for aliens, I hope there is alien life, but I want to see proof, nothing else would suffice. Though, I always wonder, if there are aliens, and they are high tech enough, wth would they visit our solar system for?

 

[LordKasual]

If aliens create the technology to travel insane distances in space, then there is little doubt they’d have long discovered how to split the atom and create nuclear weapons, probably even weapons much more powerful than that, I don’t think our nukes would impress them very much. To scale, our nukes to them are probably like finding a planet where their biggest invention is creating fire to us.

There's no way to be sure. There is very likely diminishing returns on how much power a species can get out of the universe. Barring some level of physics we're unaware of, nuclear power is just about approaching the limit of energy we can retrieve from matter. Only thing more energetic than fission that we know of is fusion i believe.

There's a good chance that they'd have defenses or could vastly overpower us, but IMO there's going to come a point where having a bigger stick stops being effective and just starts being detrimental. Nuclear weapons have already passed that threshold on earth. We can't even use them because of how uncontrollably destructive they are to EVERYTHING.

In my eyes, dangerous alien technology wouldn't be more destructive in area, but more precise in its application of destruction.

 

[synchronicity]

What I find incredibly frustrating is people who really think what we can see and hear around is all there is. Scientists are just beginning to understand the basic fundamentals if the universe and speculating its size, yet theres guys in this thread working 9-5 jobs proclaiming they've got it all figured out. "Ain't nothing out there." Lol. Good guess. We're blind and deaf to 99% of the universe, but ol' John knows everything. Primitive asf thought process. Comparatively, it's not much different than the Europeans, Chinese, etc, all thinking there weren't other continents with humans on them. Just shows how fucking stupid we are. Suddenly we get radio waves and telescopes that can't see shit, but somehow we're ignorant enough to make wild claims that's its ALL empty.

We (the average person) always tend to think we know more than we do - or are capable of knowing.

Our sense organs are already incredibly limiting/incomplete for starters. And then when you add in the fairly natural tendency to reach premature conclusions - to be certain of things, we are really stumbling in the darkness while believing things to be illuminated. And that's not even accounting for the fact that most of what most humans claim to "know" is hearsay and not direct experience.

I know not. I am.