Mid Atlantic-

Predictible or not, armchair debunkery meets with armchair storytelling.

Concise, yet powerful.

Thanks guys, I got some really good laughs from this thread.

Theflyingsorcerer.

DarronS - 19 March 2012 05:27 AM

Oooh oooh oooh. I can play that game too! Read my other posts. I have definitively shown that it is extremely unlikely for two advanced civilizations to exist at the same time, even less likely for them to find each other when separated by tens of lightyears, probably separated by thousands of lightyears, and the laws of physics mean they would have had to leave for Earth long before the rise of agriculture. Considering that we have been sending radio transmissions for a bit more than 100 years there is no way another civilization could have found us and visited. If you believe some spacefaring civilization ran across us by chance then you…

Just to locate a civilization on another planet, in another solar system—-another galaxy is so mind bogglingly impossible. To do a total 360 degree search where each fraction of a degree would encompass such an unimaginably large portion of the universe. Even studying a portion of the universe the size of the period at the end of this sentence would probably give you enough galaxies to study until the end of our species. I don’t think you truly realize how big the universe is, and it is expanding more and more rapidly.

Well, here’s an example of what I was talking about…  http://news.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474981206387

The object on this film looks really strange until you realize…

It’s an oblong mylar balloon that got away from somebody.  We tend to think of balloons as round.  We don’t expect an oblong one floating that high in the sky.

Suppose it’s possible something exists somewhere, but even if they do, who’s to say they would have evolved any further than ameoba. I go with possible, but the stories of any ever having been here I don’t buy into it. But more possibly plausible that a god.

Suppose it’s possible something exists somewhere, but even if they do, who’s to say they would have evolved any further than ameoba.

Unless or until we either meet these beings or find evidence of their existance, when you get down to the brass tacks, nobody can say anything one way or another.

There may be nothing at all, there may be pan galactic civilizations, or there may be a few isolated pockets of sentient life which like us are going nowhere.

We just don’t know.

There is no doubt in my mind that life exists elsewhere in the multiverse but there is also no doubt in my mind that we have not been “visited”.

AdrX - 05 August 2010 06:58 AM

For example this: can’t go faster than light, and because of that distances
are too huge argument do apply, but not in the way most people think IMO.

Just to have a little fun, who says they have to go faster than light?

Suppose some culture can get to 20% of light speed.  What they do is hollow out an asteroid and use it for a space ship.  Due to advanced biological sciences they have lifespans of 500 years and cold sleep technology that can slow their aging by 10 to 1.  So that gives them an effective 5000 year travel time.  At 20% of light speed they can cover 1000 light years.

So if they operate in shifts with 90% of the crew in cold sleep at any given time that would still be 900 light years and still does not take multigenerations into account.

So if an Interstellar civilisation sent out von Neumann probes and ships with live crews only went to interesting places then it is at least CONCEIVABLE that aliens could have found us hundreds or thousands of years ago and a ship with a live crew only showed up in the last few hundred years.

Sounds like a basis for a sci-fi story to me. 

There could even be political factions among the crew.  the PDs for Prime Directive versus the Uplifters who want to manipulate us, for our own good of course.

Almost anything can be imagined.  Evidence is harder to come by.

OMG, old thread.  Mentioned this in 2010.

psik

Personally, I believe it is possible, and at this point even probable.