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I think thispego is implying that this discussion is a waste of time, because nothing will come out of it except what everybody already knows:
A side who believes in ET's/life/space travel
A side who doesn't.
I think thispego is implying that this discussion is a waste of time, because nothing will come out of it except what everybody already knows:
A side who believes in ET's/life/space travel
A side who doesn't.
Fair. But to expound on the possibilities is a fun time waster. Im not trying to convince others of aliens or vice versa. Its more an "if-then" thread in my mind.
I could do the same on religion. Not trying to convince anyone of God, but "if" there is, "then".....
Yeah it's always amusing to think indepth about things on a cosmic scale or time travel produces a bunch of what if's, or even some little things like chairs or words, but personally I like the what if I won the lotto day dreams.
Infact there have been like 3-4 people from Michigan winning a nationwide lottery drawing in consecutive cashouts, that's rare. bas s.
Good posts, from DarkKingdom at least
First of all, I'm not exactly in the school that says far space travel is impossible. It would be more than possible IF we could make some serious breakthroughs that are as of yet not even close to being attained. As of now, we'd (and they'd) have to overcome serious obstacles with space (aliens are freakin far away! we have to find em first) and time (it'll take a lifetime or more to get there). We know this already.
I don't share your optimism, though, that science will advance to the point that we'll ever be able to overcome them. Don't get me wrong -- I am well aware that science and technology has advanced greatly since the dawn of civilization, and at a frightening pace since the Industrial Revolution. I am also well aware that we no longer operate from a Newtonian cosmology, but an Einsteinian one. But are we really capable of the kind of technological breakthroughs necessary to bend space and time? As advanced and freaky as our modern fighter jets are, and they're awesome, they're essentially imitating what birds do, albeit with alot more firepower and weapons. We have all kinds of drugs for diabetes, cancer, arthritis, anal fissures, hemorroids, you name it, and they're good. But they still operate in the same space-time universe that we do.
On the other hand, to really be able to accomplish traversing, say, 20 light years to the nearest planet, is on an order of sophistication exponentially greater than anything we have going. As fast and powerful and cool we can make flying objects and weapons, I think the "space-time" thing is beyond our reach.
Lastly ... the notion of tweaking our DNA to live forever is a pipe dream. We get happy when someone lives to a hundred. This is no different than the earliest days of civilization: 80-100 was about the normal limit, although a LOT fewer lived to that age back in Bible times, etc. Get us up to 120 and that'd be real progress.
My real problem with bumping up the lifespan to, say, 1000 is ... (a) we're doing this so people can live long enough to make the trip. How many of our people would do this knowing they're facing decades, if not centuries, in space, and its not certain that they'll get where they're going?
and (b) Do you really want to live to 1000?? Shoot, I know people in their 40's already grumpy about the kids today and wanting to go back to the good ole days. Imagine how ornery they'll be at 1000!
Let's hear it for dialectical materialism!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_materialism
So I just read that and from teh gist of it is from what I can make out, is that it's that everything can be explained by matter and this is the only life there is. Thomas's Cosmological arguement and Ansome's ontological one are good philosophies to contrast and provide a counter arguement.
Odds are if there is life there, they already know about us.
Very good! It can be said that dialectical materialism was the dominant ontology of the 20th century. Surely it held a huge influence, for it was the basis of communism.
Another key aspect of the dialectical approach, what I was driving at, was its reading into history, philosophy, religion, you-name-it, the struggle between warring factions. Some guy said that in any debate about X, some people believe X, others believe Y. The dialectical solution would be to find a way to merge the two and produce Z. While there may be a certain amount of this going on in the real world, I would never hold such a cynical view of truth, and I trust you wouldn't either.
Is not 20th-century evangelicalism simply a dialectical fusion of fundamentalism and liberalism?
I am aware of the "wheel" in Ezekiel, but calling it a UFO sighting is an example of a common fallacy wherein we superimpose our worldview and understanding upon the text.
DQ, cosmology is reaching the point where Einsteinian physics aren't cutting it any more.
I believe thats called interpretation, something the Bible has been subject to since they decided to write a book on the life and times of one Jesus Christ.
to spare the argument, I have no belief in references to UFOs in the Bible
So let me get this straight... people are willing to believe in a superintelligent benevolent civilization of beings who observe us and possibly interact with us, who are so advanced we cannot even begin to comprehend what they might be... but belief in God is just supers ion.
That's called "poor interpretation."
The process of proper interpretation involves reading the text, drilling down to what the author's words would have meant in the cultural and historical context in which he wrote them, interpreting that meaning into general applicative principles, checking that interpretation against the conclusions of the wider and historical interpretive community, and then finally applying those principles within your own cultural and historical context.
They have done experiments with small worms in which they switched off the expression ONE GENE and the little buggers lifespans improved by SIX times.Good posts, from DarkKingdom at least
First of all, I'm not exactly in the school that says far space travel is impossible. It would be more than possible IF we could make some serious breakthroughs that are as of yet not even close to being attained. As of now, we'd (and they'd) have to overcome serious obstacles with space (aliens are freakin far away! we have to find em first) and time (it'll take a lifetime or more to get there). We know this already.
I don't share your optimism, though, that science will advance to the point that we'll ever be able to overcome them. Don't get me wrong -- I am well aware that science and technology has advanced greatly since the dawn of civilization, and at a frightening pace since the Industrial Revolution. I am also well aware that we no longer operate from a Newtonian cosmology, but an Einsteinian one. But are we really capable of the kind of technological breakthroughs necessary to bend space and time? As advanced and freaky as our modern fighter jets are, and they're awesome, they're essentially imitating what birds do, albeit with alot more firepower and weapons. We have all kinds of drugs for diabetes, cancer, arthritis, anal fissures, hemorroids, you name it, and they're good. But they still operate in the same space-time universe that we do.
On the other hand, to really be able to accomplish traversing, say, 20 light years to the nearest planet, is on an order of sophistication exponentially greater than anything we have going. As fast and powerful and cool we can make flying objects and weapons, I think the "space-time" thing is beyond our reach.
Lastly ... the notion of tweaking our DNA to live forever is a pipe dream. We get happy when someone lives to a hundred. This is no different than the earliest days of civilization: 80-100 was about the normal limit, although a LOT fewer lived to that age back in Bible times, etc. Get us up to 120 and that'd be real progress.
My real problem with bumping up the lifespan to, say, 1000 is ... (a) we're doing this so people can live long enough to make the trip. How many of our people would do this knowing they're facing decades, if not centuries, in space, and its not certain that they'll get where they're going?
and (b) Do you really want to live to 1000?? Shoot, I know people in their 40's already grumpy about the kids today and wanting to go back to the good ole days. Imagine how ornery they'll be at 1000!
Such things are very tantalizing when it comes to the possibility of tinkering wiht the things that end up killing us all in the end.
One possibility to consider:
Freezing embryos and thawing them out, growing them into children, and using them as the colonists/explorers when they get to where they are going.
This would have some interesting ethical considerations, though...
words...
too...
long...
AAAAHHH!!
man this threads sucks out loud
Hmmm ... maybe not the strict cosmology as Einstein understood it. But, to the extent that we are learning about the ambiguity between matter & energy, space-time, we're still operating within that overall framework.
My overall point with space aliens visiting us, or we them, is that I'm not definitely ruling out the possibility. But it's real, real remote. Our civilization's not going to last forever, and neither will any civilization that's halfway near us (i.e., within 10 or so light-years). Within a finite time period, with very, vey limited technology (nothing close to what will be needed to overcome the aforementioned space and time obstacles), not to mention the ethical considerations, I don't see how it's going to happen. It's cool to write about and speculate, but it's not currently in the realm of reality. It's ... science fiction
But ... hey, if we can discover a "worm hole" anywhere near us, or make one (and it doesn't swallow us whole, or crunch the earth to the size of a peanut), then great!
No argument from me on that. The hard science behind space travel is truly beyond my comprehension. I was just citing over-arching generalities to be able to feasibly overcome such obstacles.
Haha...no, I dont want to live to 1000. I detest humanity entirely too much to want to stick around this hole for that long.Lastly ... the notion of tweaking our DNA to live forever is a pipe dream. We get happy when someone lives to a hundred. This is no different than the earliest days of civilization: 80-100 was about the normal limit, although a LOT fewer lived to that age back in Bible times, etc. Get us up to 120 and that'd be real progress.
My real problem with bumping up the lifespan to, say, 1000 is ... (a) we're doing this so people can live long enough to make the trip. How many of our people would do this knowing they're facing decades, if not centuries, in space, and its not certain that they'll get where they're going?
and (b) Do you really want to live to 1000?? Shoot, I know people in their 40's already grumpy about the kids today and wanting to go back to the good ole days. Imagine how ornery they'll be at 1000!
But "life extension" is not a pipe dream. Its a very real possibility thats closer to fruition than say, a Grand Unification Theory. Which is to say, key parts of the aging process have been identified and isolated. Lower lifeforms (common house flies for example) have had their lives extended with no drugs or stimulation, other than the elimination of sex (that is sexual reproduction). Dont quote me, but it went something like...
A common house fly lives for less than 72 hours (give or take, obviously). By eliminating the reproductive process from a control group of flies, over the course of generations (into the hundreds via in vitro (or the equivalent in flies) they have extended the life of said control group by months per fly.
It was speculated that the act of reproduction in all living organisms triggers a "countdown" in the body. Its the real start of the end.
So, studies have shown (on average) women who have no children live longer than those with (to some significant degree for a first generation subject). But that could be chalked up to the fact that a vast majority of women who can have children, do have children in this world. So the sample size is entirely to small and narrow to conclude anything. Its just an observation.
Anyway, reading your posts here have at least led me to believe you have a real understanding of various science fields. Believe it or not, it was a group of physicists who first proposed the very real possibility that "age" could be overcome.
It has to do with how humans perceive time. What in our brain/body gives us frame of reference for time? We can estimate, predict, remember and observe something as vague (but very real) like time from near birth, although it has no spatial value (at our current rate of speed that is...lol).
Investigating human perception of the vague but real notion of time, led to the discovery of certain enzymes (or signals) the brain releases that stop (or progressively slow over time) the cell-division process (i had to google it, its called cellular senescence).
If the advances made in this field are realized and isolated, a pill can be administered that dramatically reduces this enzyme or signal. Much like an anti-depressant drug that "dulls" the corresponding signals associated with depression.
The key factor in my optimism of such a breakthrough is that it works near exponentially. This process of aging is non-existent (actually, its the reverse...growth) up to adolescence, then it pauses completely (that is cells maintain their current number, state of health and capacity to reproduce) until the late 20s (-ish).
Then the capacity for all cells in the body to split is gradually reduced. First, its near unidentifiable. Then it registers, then its rapid, then it stops all together. Soon after (as in very, very soon), death.
Taking a "cellular senescence inhibitor" at the proper age (late 20s-ish) would extend first generation patients by nearly 15-20 years.
Second generation, 25-35 years. So on and so on. And thats only with one specific reduction method administered (that is, the first generation drug would never be optimized or improved).
Again, dont quote me directly on the exact numbers (age of aging being 20ish, extension of life being 15-20 years, so on) but only the over-arching reality that age reduction pills will almost certainly be created (not necessarily available, obvious reasons) in our life time or at least before 2100.
The aging process is not Genome Mastery, I realize that. But its baby steps like this (this being one of the larger steps for its implications, IMO, not necessarily its science) that lead to such a notion.
Like I said, I would like to spare the argument. I am no proponent of UFO references in the Bible....please.
It's possible ... ethics aside, of course. We're not worms, though. To get a worm, which might live, I dunno, a year, to live 6 years is very nice. But, to get a bit sloppy with my terminology, we'd eventually run into diminishing returns -- the potential for extending human life span couldn't help but level off. I'd say the best we can expect is, maybe, 120 years.
And if they could find the majic gene and make us live to, say to be 600, so what? Would that be enough to get us there? What if the spaceship breaks halfway there? That would be a cold, lonely death for our guys and their children.
And ... how grumpy do you think a 600 year old person is going to be, upon his return to earth??
My overall point with space aliens visiting us, or we them, is that I'm not definitely ruling out the possibility. But it's real, real remote. Our civilization's not going to last forever, and neither will any civilization that's halfway near us (i.e., within 10 or so light-years). Within a finite time period, with very, vey limited technology (nothing close to what will be needed to overcome the aforementioned space and time obstacles), not to mention the ethical considerations, I don't see how it's going to happen. It's cool to write about and speculate, but it's not currently in the realm of reality. It's ... science fictionTotally true. But even you listed certain certainties held by the leading minds of science less than 150 years ago, which after being debunked, are considered common knowledge to any kid watching the footage from the moon landing.
[Tin Foil Hat]But, but, but that was done in a Hollywood studio! FAKE![/Tin Foil Hat]
then leave
It's .... cool. That's what it is. But it ain't reality. At least I don't think so.
And who would fund all thi$ anyway?
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