Are We Alone on This Great Island In Space?

Mikey23

So would more training get me up to half light speed? Or better wheels?

I can do 15 now so nearly there...

Mikey23

... And should I wear a helmet?

finchy

I reckon VTech's got a half light speed rocket in one of his outbuildings. Maybe he'll give us all a lift.

shockedsoshocked

RDW wrote:

ShockedSoShocked wrote:

Isn't there a mathematical equation out there, that basically states as our Sun is relatively new in the context of the Universe, intelligent life, which potentially could be millennia ahead of us, would already have contacted us by now.

https://xkcd.com/384/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

This was the one I was on about.

sungod

imho the trouble with the fp is that it assumes intelligent life would be willing and able to colonize

assuming there is no magic ftl drive and that aliens have comparable lifespan, we're left with doing it the hard way

which means expending a lot of resources for zero return - what is going to be so valuable that it's worth bringing back from another star system at least decades and more likely hundreds of years later?

maybe there's a lack of altruism, or maybe by the time a society reaches such an exalted state it's ancestors have squandered their resources and there's nothing left for such grand exploits

VTech

Velonutter wrote:

I firmly believe that intelligent life exists in our Galaxy and beyond, we would be stupid and arrogant to think that out of all the billions of stars that we are the only life form.

There is almost certainly less intelligent life out there as well.

Perhaps the distance between life forms is deliberate until Humans have learnt to appreciate life that exists on our own planet before we gain the necessary skills to travel and infiltrate other living things lives!

You can read 100billion posts, articles, newspapers and people who will talk about all aspects of life on other planets but the above statement works for them all.

I firmly believe that things happen for a reason, I don't actually believe in GOD as such and I don't go to church or prey but I do think that by accident there are billions of planets with no life forms just floating in space for no reason.
I think life exists everywhere, in many forms.
Maybe the planet itself is a life form and we are like fleas on its back ?

arran77

Velonutter wrote:

There is almost certainly less intelligent life out there as well.

You talking about this place

secretsam

If there are really 20 Billion earth-equivalents out there, think of the potential new rides / cake opportunities

And do you suppose they also have SRAM vs Shimano vs Campagnolo arguments?

Velonutter

VTech wrote:

Velonutter wrote:

I firmly believe that intelligent life exists in our Galaxy and beyond, we would be stupid and arrogant to think that out of all the billions of stars that we are the only life form.

There is almost certainly less intelligent life out there as well.

Perhaps the distance between life forms is deliberate until Humans have learnt to appreciate life that exists on our own planet before we gain the necessary skills to travel and infiltrate other living things lives!

You can read 100billion posts, articles, newspapers and people who will talk about all aspects of life on other planets but the above statement works for them all.

I firmly believe that things happen for a reason, I don't actually believe in GOD as such and I don't go to church or prey but I do think that by accident there are billions of planets with no life forms just floating in space for no reason.
I think life exists everywhere, in many forms.
Maybe the planet itself is a life form and we are like fleas on its back ?

Yep Vtec, I don't believe in Christ, but I do believe in a creator, in my mind I agree with many of the Budhists principles, but not about re-incarnation on earth, perhaps when we die our souls are recycled onto other planets and that is why the distances are so great?

I really hope that life exists elsewhere and the above is true, as I would hate to think that it is just like someone switching the light off :shock:

Velonutter

arran77 wrote:

Velonutter wrote:

There is almost certainly less intelligent life out there as well.

You talking about this place

Nah, just BB :roll: :shock:

arran77

Velonutter wrote:

arran77 wrote:

Velonutter wrote:

There is almost certainly less intelligent life out there as well.

You talking about this place

Nah, just BB :roll: :shock:

I guess Bikeradar is a bit like the universe isn't it......you have Commuting who think they are the only intelligent life (which is a naive and arrogant stance to take) and like you say BB and Crud where the really interesting life is

Velonutter

arran77 wrote:

Velonutter wrote:

arran77 wrote:

Velonutter wrote:

There is almost certainly less intelligent life out there as well.

You talking about this place

Nah, just BB :roll: :shock:

I guess Bikeradar is a bit like the universe isn't it......you have Commuting who think they are the only intelligent life (which is a naive and arrogant stance to take) and like you say BB and Crud where the really interesting life is

I'm saying nothing :roll:

markhewitt1978

There is also the theory that the universe doesn't exist, we are in fact living inside a simulation and the reason we can't detect anyone else out there is that we are the only ones in the simulation.

arran77

markhewitt1978 wrote:

There is also the theory that the universe doesn't exist, we are in fact living inside a simulation and the reason we can't detect anyone else out there is that we are the only ones in the simulation.

Be honest, you stole that idea from The Truman Show didn't you

markhewitt1978

No; it was on some Horizon episode or something. Someone worked out the odds were tiny that this wasn't a simulation! But it goes back to the dawn of time and surely everyone has thought that at some point http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis

sungod

trouble with the simulation hypothesis is that it's based upon assumptions, there's no proof given that the assumptions are valid, and some are demonstrably made up to match the hypothesis, so the entire thing has no useful predictive power

the abstract of the paper is...

This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor-simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed.

well, (1) duh, posthuman is, by definition, not human, so by definition human is extinct because it is succeeded by posthuman, so, that's true, no need for (2) and (3), let's move on

he later takes as fact the assumption, with absolutely no supporting evidence, that the number of "ancestor-simulations run by such interested civilizations" is "extremely large", presumably this is based on him needing it to be true otherwise his hypothesis crumbles into the gutter, where it belongs

philosophy is lousy with such tosh, it goes back thousands of years, perhaps much longer, the paradoxes of motion attributed to zeno for instance, and if adams is to be believed, for which there is just as much evidence as for the simulation hypothesis, it goes back at least as far as majikthise and vroomfondel

rayjay

Explain the Dalek's then.....of course we are not alone.

sungod

daleks are easy to explain, i made this for another place years ago...