[QUOTE=matt000024;48763279]Why are we all assuming that we didn't accidentally kill the rest of the life in the universe?[/QUOTE]
...:what:
Why would we have accidentally killed all life in the universe?
[QUOTE=WitheredGryphon;48763530]...:what:
Why would we have accidentally killed all life in the universe?[/QUOTE]
"Why" isn't the question because it was likely accidental. "How" is the question you should be asking.
[QUOTE=matt000024;48763279]Why are we all assuming that we didn't accidentally kill the rest of the life in the universe?[/QUOTE]
Elaborate this should be fun
Oh cool, I accidentally intellectual discussion.
[editline]25th September 2015[/editline]
Here I am spouting off a sentence with an error in syntax and hoping for someone to rate me funny.
[editline]25th September 2015[/editline]
Can someone point me in the direction of a relatively rich (and active) philosophy forum?
Preferably in line with logic and metaphysics.
[QUOTE=Trixil;48761363]how cool would it be if it was this
[t]http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140824204738/destinypedia/images/a/ab/Ghost.png[/t][/QUOTE]
That's a funny depiction of Guilty Spark
[QUOTE=matt000024;48763574]"Why" isn't the question because it was likely accidental. "How" is the question you should be asking.[/QUOTE]
If you're going to pose extreme hypothetical like this, it helps to propose at least a vague idea of what mechanism it would operate on. Otherwise there's not much to discuss.
[QUOTE=hybrid_theory;48763801]Elaborate this should be fun[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Mort Stroodle;48763984]If you're going to pose extreme hypothetical like this, it helps to propose at least a vague idea of what mechanism it would operate on. Otherwise there's not much to discuss.[/QUOTE]
Because it's accidental one cannot really describe exactly how we did it, but the proof that it did happen is pretty obvious.
[QUOTE=matt000024;48763989]Because it's accidental one cannot really describe exactly how we did it, but the proof that it did happen is pretty obvious.[/QUOTE]
What are you going on with?
[QUOTE=matt000024;48763989]Because it's accidental one cannot really describe exactly how we did it, but the proof that it did happen is pretty obvious.[/QUOTE]
you're going to have to elaborate further
Oil on mars
Until we find out that a civilization lived there, and they actually flew to their version of "mars" (earth) to leave their dying planet. Their history lost with the future generations of humans.
[QUOTE=Arc Nova;48764144]Oil on mars[/QUOTE]
that would be cool, because wouldn't that mean a once thriving ecosystem? correct me if i'm wrong
[QUOTE=hybrid_theory;48763801]Elaborate this should be fun[/QUOTE]
According to star trek both the vger probe and nomad should be out dealing life and sterilizing it for the creators...but of course we know voyager isn't a giant hyperinteligent probe of doom, or that any super ai probe like nomad has ever been launched
[editline]26th September 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=hybrid_theory;48764327]that would be cool, because wouldn't that mean a once thriving ecosystem? correct me if i'm wrong[/quote]
No, light hydrocarbons are actually pretty common in the universe, titan is famously covered in methane and has ethane oceans, there's a nebula made of ethanol, and there's probably room for higher order carbon chains depending on pressures and locations
People seem to work on the assumption that faster-than-light travel is a necessity to colonising the universe. But with a form of propulsion that can propel us to just 10% light speed, you can colonise the entire observable universe in less than a billion years: [url]http://www.open.edu/openlearn/science-maths-technology/science/physics-and-astronomy/how-long-would-it-take-colonise-the-galaxy[/url]
That's a relatively shorter while on the cosmic scale than it took our civilization to appear. Why hasn't that happened yet?
[QUOTE=Capsup;48764405]People seem to work on the assumption that faster-than-light travel is a necessity to colonising the universe. But with a form of propulsion that can propel us to just 10% light speed, you can colonise the entire observable universe in less than a billion years: [url]http://www.open.edu/openlearn/science-maths-technology/science/physics-and-astronomy/how-long-would-it-take-colonise-the-galaxy[/url]
That's a relatively shorter while on the cosmic scale than it took our civilization to appear. Why hasn't that happened yet?[/QUOTE]
You have to ask the question: why colonize the entire observable universe? The Earth and Sun have been around for ~4.6 billion years and we haven't even colonized anything outside of Earth yet. Yet here we are 4.6 billion years later. Development on a cosmic scale could also be insanely slow based on our own experiences.
Sure it could be colonized that quickly according to that website, but that's assuming every single generation ship survived perfectly (while every single person on there had 4 kids, holy shit?) Also I think your math might be wrong, if it took us 1 million years just to start colonizing the other side of our galaxy as the website claims, then colonizing the entire universe would take an unimaginably large amount of time to colonize. Especially at only 10% light speed.
[QUOTE=catbarf;48760425]You're right that if some better source of energy comes along then you might as well use that. But I'd counter that if you're going to say that it's an assumption that a species would work towards a Dyson sphere, it's equally an assumption that if dark energy is viable that [i]every[/i] race would develop it, because if any miss that and continue in the development of nuclear fusion instead, we should inevitably see a sphere or spheres. It's simply the most efficient means of gathering the energy emitted by nuclear fusion.
But regardless of the power source, if a species can gather and use energy on a scale greater than what a Dyson sphere can provide, we should be able to see the emitted radiation from that energy use. It doesn't really matter where the power's coming from, either way it's going to emit as heat- you can see a distant lantern at night because it's emitting light, it doesn't matter if it's powered by oil or batteries.
If there's anything out there producing or consuming large amounts of energy, we should be able to see it. The fact that we don't see any evidence of intelligent life manipulating energy on this scale suggests that either life is unique to Earth, life does not progress to that level of technological development for some reason, or highly technologically advanced life is trying desperately to hide itself from some greater threat. The latter two of these scenarios invoke the Great Filter.[/QUOTE]
Would it be possible that scientists sometimes, or often fail to interpret these sources of heat, and stars? And mistakenly rule them out as something they're actually not, like a Dyson sphere or "dark energy" generator? Without the aliens even trying actively to hide it? (Probably not.)
If only we could directly search for the heat generated by living organisms.. which wouldn't be as much heat as a star or a power plant, but I'm sure they're out there, numerously. We just can't go Google Maps that shit.
In the end, I'm inclined to believe that life simply doesn't progress to such technological level, or that life doesn't simply progress to such technological level. It would require us to work against our very nature almost, or at least establish a sort of unity between all(most majority) of mankind. I think..
[editline]26th September 2015[/editline]
Anyways, your posts in this thread were truly an interesting read tbh., felt like they cleared some misconceptions people may have had about shit like heat, and radiation emitted, at such levels.
[QUOTE=JumpinJackFlash;48763316]None of this even touches my other points though, you're talking like any aliens out there are these super advanced beings that can bend space and time when really they're just as equally likely to be single-celled organisms or living in mushroom huts.[/QUOTE]
We're not looking for single-celled organisms or cavemen in huts, we're looking for evidence of something more advanced than us- and if there are cavemen in huts out there, then there's probably something more advanced than us too.
There are three possibilities- Earth is special and there's nothing out there, Earth isn't special at all and we should find life both more advanced and less advanced than us, or Earth is the biggest lottery winner in the universe and we're the most advanced race. #3 is much less likely than #2.
[QUOTE=JumpinJackFlash;48763316]Yeah, I'm well aware. I'm also going from the assumption (that can easily be and is likely wrong) that the planets more or less have the same starting conditions and will [i]roughly[/i] produce the same results if life actually starts. I don't expect aliens that can fly in spaceships, I'm expecting that they're still going through extinction cycles. Our sentience is likely a fluke, we're an evolutionary accident.[/QUOTE]
Even if they have the same starting conditions (which is totally not true- there are Sol-like suns that formed billions of years before Sol), and even if we presuppose that the development of life will follow a similar timescale as Earth's, as I said a deviation of a tiny sliver of a percentage point results in reaching our level of intelligence hundreds of thousands, even millions of years earlier. If there's plenty of life out there but it's all pond scum, the question is why nothing has beaten us to the punch and been building spaceships while [i]we[/i] were pond scum.
I suppose I should point out that the Fermi Paradox isn't about whether life exists elsewhere in the universe per se, it's about [i]intelligent[/i] life. If alien microbes are common but intelligence is such a fluke that we're the only intelligent life out there, then we still haven't solved the Fermi Paradox, because the chance of intelligent life arising is obviously non-zero. Someone has to explain why that fluke, that evolutionary accident, hasn't occurred elsewhere.
[QUOTE=JumpinJackFlash;48763316]See the Fermi Paradox doesn't really address that the evidence for alien civilization is almost impossible to find to begin with, which is why I'm kind of pissed that you're entirely ignoring the part about my post that addresses that. [/QUOTE]
I didn't ignore it, I told you you exactly why it's irrelevant. If Earth isn't special and other intelligent life exists, then there should be some out there that is of a development level sufficient to be either manipulating energy at a scale where we can perceive it or having left evidence in our solar system of their passage due to population expansion. If all the life out there is of the same development level as us or less then you still have to explain why that is the case, because it's implying that either there is a Great Filter and it's ahead of us, or somehow despite impossible odds intelligent life is relatively common but humans happen to be the most technologically developed species in our region of the universe.
The mathematical argument that intelligent life arising is so incredibly rare that we're alone in the galaxy is probably the most compelling solution to the Paradox, but the Paradox isn't invalidated by the facts that 'aliens wouldn't necessarily want to talk to us' or 'we would have difficulty detecting radio'. Neither of those is relevant.
[QUOTE=Robman8908;48761348]How fucking cool would it be if they found an artifact of a past civilization.[/QUOTE]
[img]http://i50.tinypic.com/2ahz9e8.png[/img]
A lot seems to point towards the announcement of flowing water on Mars.
[QUOTE=Bat-shit;48765673]Would it be possible that scientists sometimes, or often fail to interpret these sources of heat, and stars? And mistakenly rule them out as something they're actually not, like a Dyson sphere or "dark energy" generator? Without the aliens even trying actively to hide it? (Probably not.)[/QUOTE]
Sometimes things get overlooked, but spectral analysis is part and parcel of scanning the sky. If we found an object that glowed in IR but emitted no visible light, that would be readily noticeable and [i]really[/i] weird. Same goes for 'dark energy' generators or anything similar- if something is emitting electromagnetic radiation in a way that is not characteristic of a star, then it starts raising questions. And strange objects, like [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanny's_Voorwerp]Hanny's Voorwerp[/url], show up from time to time and get analyzed until a coherent explanation can be put forth. Astrophysics has come a long way in the last century and I think it'd be safe to say that we'd know if something we were looking at was not a star.
[QUOTE=Bat-shit;48765673]In the end, I'm inclined to believe that life simply doesn't progress to such technological level, or that life doesn't simply progress to such technological level. It would require us to work against our very nature almost, or at least establish a sort of unity between all(most majority) of mankind. I think..[/QUOTE]
The hypothesis that intelligent life self-destructs (for example, nuclear war) before achieving interstellar exploration is actually a proposed Great Filter mechanism and therefore a solution to Fermi's Paradox. I'm not sure I buy it as a solution, because I think it's a very anthropomorphic mindset- I can envision a species that behaves like communal insects (ants or termites) not suffering from that sort of infighting.
[QUOTE=Bat-shit;48765673]Anyways, your posts in this thread were truly an interesting read tbh., felt like they cleared some misconceptions people may have had about shit like heat, and radiation emitted, at such levels.[/QUOTE]
Thank you, this area is something I'm pretty passionate about.
[QUOTE=Swebonny;48769516]A lot seems to point towards the announcement of flowing water on Mars.[/QUOTE]
don't get your hopes up just in case
In star trek, after we discovered warp tech, the Vulcans made contact with us. They'd been around way longer and we're 100x smarter.
What if it turns out we're the Vulcan's. What if the rest of the universe is just dumb as shit and we're the ones who have to make contact
[QUOTE=proboardslol;48770702]In star trek, after we discovered warp tech, the Vulcans made contact with us. They'd been around way longer and we're 100x smarter.
What if it turns out we're the Vulcan's. What if the rest of the universe is just dumb as shit and we're the ones who have to make contact[/QUOTE]
FYI the vulcans underwent a long period which they pulled out of space travel all together, zephrm cochrane's phenix was launched at just the right time to attract the attention of a new wave of Vulcan scouts
I guess what I'm saying is its still very anthropocentric to think that just because a species can travel to another solar system doesn't mean they will go to all of them. Ya a long term permanent colony in space or another solar system is great for ensuring the ultimate survival of your kind, but that might just be a horizontal move to ensure total survival where as the vertical move is to mostly transcend physical to digital or become biologically immortal, its very much a holdover from the space age to think that every advanced species needs a galaxy worth of planets when we are already pretty good at using the resources of one
[QUOTE=Sableye;48770987]FYI the vulcans underwent a long period which they pulled out of space travel all together, zephrm cochrane's phenix was launched at just the right time to attract the attention of a new wave of Vulcan scouts
I guess what I'm saying is its still very anthropocentric to think that just because a species can travel to another solar system doesn't mean they will go to all of them. Ya a long term permanent colony in space or another solar system is great for ensuring the ultimate survival of your kind, but that might just be a horizontal move to ensure total survival where as the vertical move is to mostly transcend physical to digital or become biologically immortal, its very much a holdover from the space age to think that every advanced species needs a galaxy worth of planets when we are already pretty good at using the resources of one[/QUOTE]
Id much rather remain mortal and obtain a galactic empire.
What if we're alone because all the great civilizations of the past have been exterminated by radical anti-organics. What if humans have to be the Zeus to the galaxy's Cronos?
Only now am I discovering how cool nasa tv actually is.
Why did I never watch their broadcasts before
[QUOTE=Trixil;48769536]don't get your hopes up just in case[/QUOTE]
It is flowing water.
[url]http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EPSC2015/EPSC2015-838-1.pdf[/url]
They now got evidence that those previous pictures of what looked like water is actually water, although very salty of course.
What are the implications of flowing water?
[QUOTE=proboardslol;48772812]What are the implications of flowing water?[/QUOTE]
Extremophiles possibly?
[QUOTE=Swebonny;48772773]It is flowing water.
[url]http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EPSC2015/EPSC2015-838-1.pdf[/url]
They now got evidence that those previous pictures of what looked like water is actually water, although very salty of course.[/QUOTE]
:mindblown: holy shit
We've known for a while that there's ice on mars, and flowing water is a natural result when ice melts. The issue is that water doesn't last long on Mars because of the lack of air pressure; it will either freeze or evaporate depending on the temperature, it can't stay in a liquid state.
The report appears to be about brines that could (possibly) stay in a liquid state for extended periods even though the air pressure is so low. The existence of said brines is evidenced by spectral analysis of the salt deposits in the RSL ("Recurring Slope Lineae," features thought to be caused by water flow which fade and reappear over the course of Mars years) that flowing water leaves behind. Also keep in mind that the water in the brine still wouldn't last continuously, it would still eventually evaporate, but it would last long enough to cause the RSL we've been seeing (which we already knew were evidence of flowing water on Mars because of how they reform, we just weren't sure how it was possible).
Also, many of these RSL are forming in places where there is no nearby ice, so there's still some unsolved mysteries about how the water is getting there.
That's just my best guess from skimming the report and from the fact that I just finished up an astronomy course. Correct me if I'm wrong about anything.
I also wouldn't make any assumptions about this meaning that life exists on Mars. This "brine" doesn't really last long enough for anything to live in it.
[editline]27th September 2015[/editline]
[QUOTE=Swebonny;48772773]They now got evidence that those previous pictures of what looked like water is actually water, although very salty of course.[/QUOTE]
I hate to correct someone when I'm not 100% sure but reading the report, it doesn't look like they actually have "pictures of water", the spectral analysis is of the deposits at the bottoms of the RSL that water is thought to have formed. They still don't have pictures of the water actually forming the RSL.
Here's the part where they say "We don't know how the water is getting there" by the way (part 3. Discussion)
[quote]The origin of water forming the RSL is not understood [10-12], given the extreme aridity of Mars’ surface environment. Water could form by the surface/sub-surface melting of ice, but the presence of near-surface equatorial ice is highly unlikely. Water could also form via deliquescence by hygroscopic salts, although it is unclear how the Martian atmosphere can sufficiently supply water vapor every year to create RSL [10, 15]. The absence of concentrated deliquescent salts would rule out this hypothesis. Another hypothesis is seasonal discharge of a local aquifer, which concentrates salt deposits as the brine evaporates, but then lineae emulating from the tops of local peaks [10] are difficult to explain. It is conceivable that RSL are forming in different parts of Mars via different formation mechanisms. The new compositional insights reported here from widely separated sites provide essential new clues.[/quote]
EDIT: I replaced instances of "Canals" with RSL, because they aren't actually canals. Canals are a different feature on the Mars surface (thought to be caused by water from a much more distant time in Mars's past)
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.
