[img]http://skitterbot.com/images/cm-5.jpg[/img]
Now that you mantion it, it does have that alien look to it.
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;24289302]Looks like we need a Butlerian Jihad.[/QUOTE]
Dune reference :hfive:
We wouldn't become ugly cyborgs because we value beauty too much. If anything it would all be internal.
[QUOTE=Kybalt;24295304]We wouldn't become ugly cyborgs because we value beauty too much. If anything it would all be internal.[/QUOTE]
I sure wouldn't mind to be a real-life cyborg...
[IMG]http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/4711/sketch01bk7.jpg[/IMG]
Sans the Nuke addiction thing, of course :v:
[QUOTE=Arachnidus;24286034]Somehow, I don't think any alien we'd encounter would be carbon based. Different planets mean different courses of evolution. Of course, basic laws of biology will still apply, bipedalism and thumbs being likely and still present, but beyond that?[/QUOTE]
Bipedalism and thumbs aren't basic laws of biology, they just so happen to be particularly convenient for our planet's surroundings and conditions.
I hope they are like Legion.
"They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"Meat. They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"There's no doubt about it. We picked several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."
"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars."
"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."
"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."
"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."
"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."
"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in the sector and they're made out of meat."
"Maybe they're like the Orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage."
"Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take too long. Do you have any idea the life span of meat?"
"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the Weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside."
"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads like the Weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through."
"No brain?"
"Oh, there is a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat!"
"So... what does the thinking?"
"You're not understanding, are you? The brain does the thinking. The meat."
"Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"
"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?"
"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."
"Finally, Yes. They are indeed made out meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."
"So what does the meat have in mind?"
"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the universe, contact other sentients, swap ideas and information. The usual."
"We're supposed to talk to meat?"
"That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio. 'Hello. Anyone out there? Anyone home?' That sort of thing."
"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"
"Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."
"I thought you just told me they used radio."
"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."
"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?"
"Officially or unofficially?"
"Both."
"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome, and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in the quadrant, without prejudice, fear, or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing."
"I was hoping you would say that."
"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?"
"I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say?" `Hello, meat. How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?"
"Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact."
"So we just pretend there's no one home in the universe."
"That's it."
"Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you have probed? You're sure they won't remember?"
"They'll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we're just a dream to them."
"A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat's dream."
"And we can mark this sector unoccupied."
"Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?"
"Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotations ago, wants to be friendly again."
"They always come around."
"And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the universe would be if one were all alone."
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;24289302]Looks like we need a Butlerian Jihad.[/QUOTE]
oh man
good one
They talk by flapping their meat at each other.
:q:
[QUOTE=Sgt-NiallR;24285593]Aliens [I]could [/I]be annything, hene why they're called aliens.
They could be galaxy sized swarms of dust, they could be energy.[/QUOTE]
Oh look a cloud of light coming towards us with absolutely no physical form in any way shape or form meaning it has no neural network, organs, means of gaining energy, propulsion or grey matter! I wonder if it's intelligent!!
There will be no aliens anywhere in this universe made of fucking energy.
Oh and they may leave behind artificial intelligences to explore for them eh?
[img]http://www.bioware.com/_commonext/images/me/geth_01_242x182.jpg[/img]
[QUOTE=TheHydra;24285659]Generally when people say "aliens", they're referring to intelligent life-forms.[/QUOTE]
[img]http://image3.examiner.com/images/blog/EXID30616/images/Illegal-Immigrants-water.jpg[/img]
"Dios Mio! We're off the hook!"
[quote] I think Mass Effect and Farscape has the most accurate depiction of what an alien would look like. Halo's not too far off either.[/quote]
How could they have the most accurate depiction if we've never had any contact with alien life form?
[QUOTE=TommieBoy;24304645]How could they have the most accurate depiction if we've never had any contact with alien life form?[/QUOTE]
Based on logic, principle and known laws of biology, they're as close as we get. Humans made it to this point because we evolved to use tools. A star-worthy alien species would need an analog of that, or be simply the equivalent of an ape.
[QUOTE=DainBramageStudios;24299990]"They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"Meat?"
"Meat?"
"Meat?"
[/QUOTE]
thats a stupid story
The future of humanity.
[img]http://sandalsandsocks.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/04/28/borg.jpg[/img]
I would be perfectly ok with this.
[QUOTE=Novangel;24286112][img_thumb]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v305/taelie_kaweii/pictures/vg/mass%20effect/reapersairquotes.gif[/img_thumb]
Obligatory 'Ah yes the Reapers'
Agree with above[/QUOTE]
Related:
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7Oc-pstqpc[/media]
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;24289302]Looks like we need a Butlerian Jihad.[/QUOTE]
If we don't find a Spice-like alternative, we'd be screwed over, anyway.
And if we did, no one likes giant man-slugs with monopoly on space travel.
[QUOTE=Arachnidus;24286034]Somehow, I don't think any alien we'd encounter would be carbon based. Different planets mean different courses of evolution. Of course, basic laws of biology will still apply, bipedalism and thumbs being likely and still present, but beyond that? I think Mass Effect and Farscape has the most accurate depiction of what an alien would look like. Halo's not too far off either.[/QUOTE]
Probability dictates that they MOST LIKELY would be carbon based using water as a solvent. Carbon is the only element to date known to be able to form very complex, very long chains (or polymers). Silicon can to an extent (as can other combinations of elements), but they don't get [b]anywhere near[/b] as large as carbon chains before breaking apart.
Water is an excellent solvent for many reasons. It has a large range between its boiling and melting points in comparison to other chemicals (such as ammonia) that would be candidates for solvents for alien life (but the range isn't TOO high). One of the main reason both ammonia and, occasionally, hydrogen chloride are considered possible solvents for alien life is because they are able to form hydrogen bonds (which are VERY IMPORTANT to life for too many reasons to list here). Both HCl and NH3 quite readily change from one state of matter to another (whereas a lot of compounds have a HUGE range between changing from from solid to a liquid, and liquid to a gas), which is an important point.
The problem with hypothetical alien solvents (solvents that AREN'T water) is that they change state TOO READILY (as already mentioned). While water can go from liquid to gas, back to liquid, and even to a solid quite easily, it's not TOO EASY for it to do so. Ammonia's melting to boiling range isn't as large as water's so it would be too easy for it go from one state to another which could be problematic for any life using it as a solvent.
Of course this doesn't totally rule out the possibility of lifeforms using some other element as their basic building block and some other solvent that isn't water, however it's MUCH MORE LIKELY that any life that pops up in the universe will be made up of carbon and use water as a solvent than these hypothetical biologies.
I don't believe in God or destiny, but taking how evolution and things have turned out, I feel like we are here just to build the next step in evolution.
[img]http://mancathlon08.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/monolith.jpg[/img]
? is this an alien?
no it's a rock slab
2001: ASO....
:ohdear:
[QUOTE=bravehat;24300899]Oh look a cloud of light coming towards us with absolutely no physical form in any way shape or form meaning it has no neural network, organs, means of gaining energy, propulsion or grey matter! I wonder if it's intelligent!!
There will be no aliens anywhere in this universe made of fucking energy.
Oh and they may leave behind artificial intelligences to explore for them eh?
[IMG]http://www.bioware.com/_commonext/images/me/geth_01_242x182.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE]
Allow me to paraphrase a passage from Arthur C. Clarke's book [I]The garden of Rama.
[/I][quote=The Eagle]Like all species, you have a very limited idea of what you consider possible to give rise to other intelligent species.[/quote]
If anyone has the book at hand, could you correct, because it is a bitch to find particular quotes on the internet.
My point is this, don't be so fast to disregard things as impossible, as, frankly, you probably have no idea.
I advise bravehat to watch this video [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc[/media]
Surely that must show that all matter has some form of consciousness?
How else can it be explained? And seeing as energy is a state of matter and the cyclic nature of both, then are you 100% sure energy could not also do this?
The fact is we know quite literally nothing of the quantum world, and it's odd actions, we have no logical way of understanding it apart from stating what it does.
So have an open mind.
[QUOTE=Sgt-NiallR;24312023]Allow me to paraphrase a passage from Arthur C. Clarke's book [I]The garden of Rama.
[/I]
If anyone has the book at hand, could you correct, because it is a bitch to find particular quotes on the internet.
My point is this, don't be so fast to disregard things as impossible, as, frankly, you probably have no idea.[/QUOTE]
No, he's right. You're wrong.
Energy doesn't just 'clump together'. Energy doesn't stay in one place for no reason. It's a fundamental rule of the universe that energy WILL dissipate into its surroundings, and extremely quickly at that.
If nothing is physically there producing more energy it'll all just dissipate into nothingness incredibly quickly. And don't give me a bunch of, "stop being so closed-minded," bullshit because that is how physics works. That's how thermodynamics works and there's no fucking way you're gonna disprove that theory any time soon. It's stood the test of time up until this point.
[QUOTE=pal670;24312168]I advise bravehat to watch this video [URL="http://www.facepunch.com/#"]View YouTUBE video[/URL]
[URL]http://youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc[/URL]
Surely that must show that all matter has some form of consciousness?
How else can it be explained? And seeing as energy is a state of matter and the cyclic nature of both, then are you 100% sure energy could not also do this?
The fact is we know quite literally nothing of the quantum world, and it's odd actions, we have no logical way of understanding it apart from stating what it does.
So have an open mind.[/QUOTE]
I'm sure Bravehat is v. open minded. He's just close-minded to bullshit, which is of course a good thing.
And calling the quantum particles conscious is quite a bit far-fetched. Just because they are affected by observation does not in fact mean they are alive and self-aware.
[QUOTE=pal670;24312168]I advise bravehat to watch this video [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc[/media]
Surely that must show that all matter has some form of consciousness?
How else can it be explained? And seeing as energy is a state of matter and the cyclic nature of both, then are you 100% sure energy could not also do this?
The fact is we know quite literally nothing of the quantum world, and it's odd actions, we have no logical way of understanding it apart from stating what it does.
So have an open mind.[/QUOTE]
The "magic" in Quantum Mechanics is because QM is an abstract model to explain phenomena too small to accurately measure. Whatever you've heard about QM is basically going to be bullshit because it's so complicated even the scientists themselves honestly have no 'effin clue what the shit, the little clue they have would be a million times too complicated for you.
Or so they think.
"Observation" in this case meaning "any interaction with the rest of the universe", so IMHO it stands to reason that the double slit effect occurs from alteration of the state of the particle by an interaction. Nothing magical about that.
The double slit experiment works for an electron because ALL matter itself can act as waves as well as particles. Likewise energy, such as light, which is normally treated like a wave also exhibits certain properties characteristic of particles.
Small particles like the electron exhibit a rather 'large' De Broglie wavelength (which is when it acts as a wave) which allows for noticeable diffraction to occur (which is what you expect to happen with light and not physical matter as it passes through slits).
The article is pretty accurate in my opinion. Biological life like ourselves was created through evolution to survive as primitive animals. We're not made for a technological lifestyle, and eventually we'll reach a point where our brains limit us from advancing further.
Eventually, most complex calculations/research/new inventions will be made by extremely advanced artificial beings, and they won't have the limits of the human brain. Our first hyper-intelligent machine will be our last invention, as the machine can invent another, more powerful machine, and that one can invent yet another more powerful one e.t.c.
Artificial beings will be much superior to humans, and the only way we can catch up is if we modify our bodies and brains to the point where we'll be "Cyborgs", or if we upload our consciousness' into some kind of virtual reality similar to the Internet. Personally, I think the latter will happen once we have the technological capabilities of doing it (which will probably be pretty soon, since technological advancement will skyrocket once the first hyper-intelligent computer is created). At this point our main concern will probably be to gather more matter and energy to create larger and more powerful computers which we can thrive in. We'll probably be similar to the Borg, but instead of assimilating humans to create a more powerful and advanced collective, we'll assimilate matter.
It is reasonable to assume that other kinds of life out there capable of interstellar travel may be just like that; hyper-intelligent computers housing a network of artifical lifeforms enjoying the bliss of a higher plane of consciousness.
Of course, this is all speculation. The future may turn out to be completely different, but what I described seems like the most probable future to me (and many other people/scientists).
[QUOTE=Mindtwistah;24315638]Eventually, most complex calculations will be made by extremely advanced artificial beings.[/QUOTE]
Welcome to the 20th century. :v:
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